When you’ve used Slack for a while, getting lost in a wave of conversations isn’t a new thing. I’ve missed out on so many channels that I wish I hadn’t. Thankfully, there’s now a way to get around this problem: Slack Threads.
Slack has realized that as people get enthusiastic, they type in a bunch of messages that may sometimes take the channel off-topic. Threads is designed to solve that exact problem. With Threads, you can now connect messages in a related conversation and follow only what you want to.
How Slack Threads work.
When someone sends a message to a channel that you want to follow up on, you can remove that particular conversation from the channel and start a separate thread instead. This way, you can discuss the matter in detail, without involving others who don’t need to know the details.
Starting a new thread.
To remove a message and begin a new thread, just hover over the message and click on the “Start a thread” option. The thread will pop up in your right sidebar and you can join in with a reply. Here’s the best part: every reply in a thread won’t mark the channel as unread or send you notifications. Instead, the threads sidebar will highlight just to alert you that someone has posted a reply. And to make sure that a specific person sees your message, you can always tag them with an @ mention.
Participating in a thread.
There can be many threads within a single channel. And you’ll see thumbnails of the people who’ve replied to a particular thread, below the thread itself so that you know where in the channel a thread has a reply.
So when you reply to a thread, it doesn’t go to the entire channel, It only adds up as a reply to that particular thread. However, if you’d like to send your reply to the entire channel, you can just check the checkbox near the reply text box.
Manage ’em all.
I know, I know. All this means that you’ll soon have too many threads popping up everywhere. You’ll be replying to a number of threads on one channel and more threads on another channel altogether. That’s why Slack now has an All Threads view. Here you can follow and reply to, all your threads across all channels. And of course, when someone replies, the view will highlight to alert you so that you don’t miss another conversation.
Ready to try Threads? I know I am. Read more about Threads in Slack’s blog post.
