How to Pause Notifications in Slack

You need focus time, or the workday is over and Slack keeps buzzing. Pausing notifications silences desktop and phone alerts on every device until the timer runs out. Messages still arrive; only the alerts stop.

Click your profile picture

Click your profile picture in the top-right corner of the Slack window.

Hover over Pause notifications

Move the pointer over Pause notifications. A submenu lists durations.

Pick a duration or a custom time

Choose For 30 minutes, For 1 hour, For 2 hours, Until tomorrow, or Until next week. Pick Custom to enter an exact date and time. Notifications stop right away, and the bell icon next to your name shows a small z so that you and your coworkers can see you are paused.

Set a daily schedule instead

For a standing quiet window, choose Set a notification schedule from the same submenu. Slack opens the Notifications section of Preferences, where you choose the hours you want to receive notifications on Every day, Weekdays, or Custom days. Anything sent outside those hours waits silently until the window opens again.

Resume when ready

To end a pause early, click your profile picture, hover over Pause notifications, and click Resume notifications. A timed pause ends on its own.

Urgent messages can still get through. While you are paused, someone sending you a direct message sees a note that your notifications are off and can click Notify anyway to push the alert through. Workspace admins can turn that option off, and it applies only to direct messages, not channel posts.

Use the message box or the phone. Type /dnd for 1 hour (or /dnd until 3pm) in any message box and press Enter to pause without opening a menu; it posts nothing to the channel. On the phone app, tap the You tab, tap Pause notifications, and choose a duration.