The short answer
To mute a Slack channel but keep it in your sidebar, mute it as usual, then on desktop click the Manage my sidebar icon at the top of the Home tab and select Show muted conversations. Or skip muting: set the channel to Just mentions, or turn off its desktop and mobile notifications, and it stays visible and quiet.
Mute vs leave vs hide in Slack
Three different things, often confused:
- Mute. You stay in the channel and stop getting its notifications. Muted conversations are typically hidden from your sidebar, which is why the desktop menu option is literally called Mute and hide. You still get a numbered badge next to the channel if someone mentions you, and Threads turns bold if someone replies to a message you sent there.
- Hide. A sidebar display setting, not a notification setting. Muted channels can be hidden or shown, and the sidebar filter can also hide channels with no activity for 30 days.
- Leave. You’re out of the channel. You can rejoin a public channel, but for a private one someone has to add you back, and its messages stop showing in your search results.
Pick by what you want
- Never read it, never need it: leave.
- Read it on your own time, never pinged: mute it and show muted conversations.
- Pinged only when someone mentions you: set it to Just mentions.
- See it go bold, but no banners: turn off its desktop and mobile notifications.
How to show muted channels in the Slack sidebar
Mute the channel
On desktop, open the channel, click the Notifications icon at the top, and select Mute and hide. On iPhone, open the channel, tap its name, and tap Mute channel. Group DMs work the same way on desktop, and a DM with one person mutes as soon as you click its Notifications icon.
Bring muted channels back into view
- In the Slack desktop app, go to the Home tab.
- Click the Manage my sidebar icon at the top.
- Select Show muted conversations.
Muted channels now sit in your sidebar without bolding when there’s new activity, so they’re easy to skim past and easy to open. Slack’s help center documents this toggle for desktop, so set it there.
Still missing a channel? In the same menu, hover over Filter and sort. The default, Active only, hides conversations with no new activity in the past 30 days.
Make a Slack channel quiet without muting it
Sometimes you want a channel quiet, not muted. Slack’s per-channel settings do that and leave the channel exactly where it was.
Only hear about mentions
On desktop, open the channel, click the Notifications icon and select Just mentions. On iPhone, tap the channel name, tap Settings & Details, then Notifications, and choose your preference.
Turn off banners for one channel
On desktop, click the Notifications icon and select Advanced options. On iPhone it’s the same Notifications screen. Turn off Desktop notifications and Mobile notifications for that channel. It stays in your sidebar and still turns bold with new posts. It just stops reaching out.
Mute it for a while
On desktop, click the Notifications icon, hover over More options, and under Temporarily mute choose one hour or until tomorrow.
To see every channel with its own settings, open Profile picturePreferencesNotifications and scroll to Exceptions to the defaults. On iPhone, find it under Profile pictureNotifications.
Group quiet channels in a sidebar section
On paid plans, custom sections let you park all the read-when-you-like channels together, muted or not. Each section can have its own filter and sorting, so you can show everything in one section and only active channels in another.
- On desktop, hover over Channels in your sidebar and click the three dots icon.
- Click Channel section, name it (“Read later”, “Watching”), and click Create.
- Drag channels into it.
Sections are only visible to you, so set them up however you like. To sort one, hover over its name, click the three dots icon, and choose A-Z, Recency or Priority. To find channels that were filtered out of view, including muted ones, hover over a section name on desktop and click its search icon. On iPhone, tap a custom section on the Home tab and scroll through everything in it.
Muting channels won’t fix your evenings
If you mute #team-updates every evening and unmute it every morning, what you want is a notification schedule: set it once and Slack pauses everything outside your hours. Here’s how to stop Slack notifications after work. For the daytime, this checklist to reduce Slack notifications goes setting by setting. And if teammates still reach you through a pause, read what notify anyway means in Slack.
Questions
How do I mute a Slack channel but keep it in my sidebar?
Mute the channel, then on desktop click the Manage my sidebar icon at the top of the Home tab and select Show muted conversations.
Where did my muted Slack channels go?
Muted conversations are typically hidden from the sidebar. Choose Show muted conversations from the Manage my sidebar menu, and check that your sidebar filter isn’t hiding inactive channels.
Will I still see mentions in a muted Slack channel?
You won’t get notifications, but a numbered badge appears next to the channel if you’re mentioned. Threads also turns bold if someone replies to your message there.
Is leaving a Slack channel the same as muting it?
No. Leaving takes you out of the channel, and for a private channel someone has to add you back. Muting keeps you in it without notifications.
Sources
Menu names change between app and iOS versions. These are the official pages, checked October 9, 2026.