A quick tour of Slack

Welcome to Slack — your productivity platform. Browse the tour below for a quick overview of your new workspace.

Open a channel

Channels keep work focused by giving each topic, project or team its own space. In the   Home tab, you’ll find a list of your channels in the channels and direct messages tree. Select any channel from the tree to open it.

Navigate Slack with a keyboard: Press F6 to navigate to   Home or any other tab, then use the ↑ or ↓ arrow keys to navigate through the list of channels and sections. 

Explore productivity tools

While most of your work will take place in channels, Slack has a number of tools to explore that can help you have a more productive workday. In the tablist, you’ll find the Huddles, Canvases, and External icons. Select an icon to navigate to the tab and get started with these tools. 

• Huddles
  Start a huddle to work alongside your coworkers in real time with audio, video, and screen sharing.
• Canvases
  Use a canvas to create, collaborate on, and share fully-formatted content.
• External
  Collaborate with external partners by working with them using Slack Connect. 

Navigate Slack with a keyboard: Jump to the different tabs in the tablist with the shortcuts Ctrl+1, 2, 3, 4, 0 (Mac) or Ctrl+Shift+1, 2, 3, 4, 0 (Windows).

Set your preferences

Open your profile anytime you want to customize Slack, add a profile picture, or update your preferences. Click your profile picture in the control strip to open the user menu, then select Preferences. Select from the options in the menu to customize things like your notifications, theme, accessibility preferences and more. 

Navigate Slack with a keyboard: Press ⌘ + Comma (Mac) or Ctrl + Comma (Windows/Linux) to open your preferences, then press ↓ to navigate through the different preferences.

Get started 

If you can do it in Slack, you can start it from the   Create new menu. Select   Create new in your sidebar to compose a new direct message, start a huddle, create a canvas, or start a new channel. 

Navigate Slack with a keyboard: Press ⌘+N (Mac) or Ctrl+N (Windows/Linux) to open the message composer. Your focus will move to the To: field, where you can type the name of a person or channel to select a conversation for your message.

Additional resources

These guides are a great way to level up your Slack knowledge. When you’re ready, take a moment to browse the following:

• Slack tutorials
• Accessibility in Slack
• Use Slack with a screen reader
• Navigate Slack with a keyboard