5 Slack slash commands you need to know to save you time and energy

Slack has become the de facto standard for team/staff/family collaboration and communication. Not only is Slack easy to install and use, but it also offers plenty of features to empower your day-to-day interactions and work activities.

Most people make use of the basic features of Slack, such as discussions, threads, direct messages, and file sharing. But did you know there's another tool that can help make you a master of Slackdom?

That tool is slash commands.

Also: Self-messaging on Slack sounds lonely, but it's my best productivity hack

What is a slash command? To put it simply, it's a command that begins with the / (slash) character. When you type the / character, it immediately informs your Slack interface (be it the desktop or mobile app) that what follows is a command (hence the name ‘slash command'). Why do this? It saves you the time of hunting for threads or settings or other things in Slack. 

Let's find out how this process works and the types of commands you can use with it.

How to use Slack slash commands

In its most basic form, a slash command looks like this:

Other commands to know 

Getting the hang of it? I thought you might. But what about other handy slash commands? Here's a short list I've pulled together of the most useful slash commands:

• /status – On desktop, it triggers a pop-up which allows you to set your status. On mobile, type /status followed by your preferred status, hit return, and it's set. 
• /search – takes you straight to the search tool to search through messages and files in Slack.
• /shortcuts – displays a list of keyboard shortcuts you can use in Slack.
• /who – lists up to 100 members of your current channel.

Also: The best collaboration apps: Top team tools

Finally, if you find yourself unsure of what all slash commands can do, just type / to reveal an entire list of the available slash commands for your workspace.

And that covers the basics of using slash commands in Slack. Once you get the hang of this handy feature, you'll find Slack to be a far more efficient and powerful tool for your communication and collaboration needs.