Turn off paused Slack notifications.

How to unpause Slack notifications on iPhone

1. Open Slack and tap your profile picture at the top of the screen.
2. Tap Pause notifications.
3. Tap Resume notifications. Or pick a new time frame if you only want a shorter pause.

The snooze icon next to your name disappears and notifications start again. Slack didn’t notify you about anything that arrived during the pause, so open Slack to catch up on what came in.

Not hearing anything after resuming? Check the iPhone side: SettingsNotificationsSlack needs Allow Notifications turned on, and a Focus can silence Slack separately from Slack’s own pause.

How to resume Slack notifications on desktop

1. Click your profile picture in the sidebar.
2. Hover over Notifications.
3. Select Resume notifications.

Faster: type /dnd off in any message field and send it. The old Do Not Disturb commands still work, even though Slack now calls the feature Pause notifications. /dnd until 5pm or /dnd for 15 mins pause it again.

To change a pause rather than end it, hover over Notifications in the same menu and pick a different time frame, or select Custom to set your own end time. A short pause for dinner is often all you wanted in the first place.

Why Slack keeps pausing notifications by itself

If you resume and Slack pauses again later, one of these is switching it back on:

• Your notification schedule. The most common one. With a schedule set, Slack only notifies you on the days and hours you chose and pauses notifications the rest of the time. If the hours are wrong, it looks like Slack pausing at random.
• A workspace default from your admin. Workspace owners and admins can set default Do Not Disturb hours for everyone. They apply unless you set your own schedule, and you can still change your hours or turn it off.
• A status with Pause notifications ticked. When you set a status on desktop, there’s a box that pauses notifications until the status clears. A week-long “Out sick” status keeps you paused for a week.
• Focus mode on desktop. Focus mode pauses your notifications, except from VIPs if you allow them, and it can be set to Don’t turn off. If you connected Google Calendar, a focus block on your calendar can turn it on for you.

How to tell what paused your Slack notifications

Each cause leaves a clue, so you can fix the right setting instead of resuming every evening.

• Slack turned grey on your computer. That’s focus mode. Your theme switches to grayscale and your status changes to In focus mode. Click focus mode in the sidebar again to turn it off.
• There’s a status emoji next to your name. A status with Pause notifications ticked keeps you paused until it clears. Edit the status or clear it.
• The pause starts at the same time every day. That’s a schedule. Check Notification schedule under Notifications. If you never set one, it’s likely your admin’s workspace default, and setting your own replaces it.
• The hours are off by a few. If you’ve travelled, your time zone may be out of date. Slack says keeping your time zone current keeps your schedule running as intended.

How to change or turn off Slack’s notification schedule

On iPhone

1. Tap your profile picture at the top of the screen, then tap Notifications.
2. Under Notification schedule, tap Allow notifications.
3. Choose Every day, Weekdays or Custom, then set the Start and End times. For Custom, tap each day and set its hours.

On desktop

1. Click your profile picture, then Preferences.
2. Below Working hours, open the Allow notifications menu and choose Every day, Weekdays or Custom.
3. Set your start and end times. Settings save on their own, so close the window when you’re done.

Slack’s help center lists those three options and no separate off switch, so to get notifications at more times, widen the days and hours. Your own schedule overrides any default your admin set.

Keep the pause, fix the hours

A schedule that matches your actual day is the best after-hours setting Slack has. Set it to your real finish time, and on a late night use a one-off pause instead of turning the schedule off. The full setup is in how to stop Slack notifications after work.

Two things still get through a pause. Teammates can override it for an urgent DM, which is covered in what notify anyway means in Slack. And the badge on Slack’s icon keeps counting, which is its own puzzle if it never clears: see why a Slack notification won’t go away.