Using the mini-toolbar to save you time in Slack

Miniature workers fixing a drone

We all know that Slack is all about messaging and saving time (or at least emails), but do you know about the Slack mini-toolbar and how it can help?

Where’s this mini-toolbar?

As you hover over any message in any slack channel or direct message it appears ‘top-right’ (that’s of the message row).

Note: This is for desktop/laptop options, both the Slack app or in a web browser.

The mini toolbar appears to the top right of the message you're hovering over.
The mini toolbar appears to the top right of the message.

What does it do?

Being a toolbar (mini or otherwise), it gives you quick commands for some of the useful options.

Note: A couple of the commands are only available if you’re hovering over a message that you wrote/posted.

What’s on this toolbar?

You can break the options down into 5 sections:

  • Emoticons
  • Reply
  • Share
  • Save
  • Menu
Hover over a message to see the Slack mini-toolbar.
Slack Mini-toolbar

Emoticons

The first 4 options fit into this group.

Do you know that not every message needs to have a reply?

Sometimes it’s enough to use an emoticon to express your feelings/thoughts.

Tip: While all of the emoticons have an explanation what they are – if it’s agreed by everyone in the channel that they standard for something specific, then that’s how they can be used. E.g. the eyes emoji stands for ‘looking’ but could also be ‘seen the message’.

Note: The first 3 emojis are part of the ‘One-click Reactions’ which needs to be enabled by the user and selected by a Slack admin.

Reply / Reply in Thread

Popular channels can have a lot of messages in.

How can you keep a conversation together when there’s so many messages?

Simple – use the Reply in Thread option to keep responses together with the original message.

Share

Take a message and share it with a person, channel or DM.

I’m not 100% sold on this option – but if it’s information that someone (or another channel) would find useful (and they aren’t in the original channel), then sharing makes perfect sense.

But – if they need to see this message, wouldn’t they be in this channel? (Something to think about)

Save

You’ve seen a message with useful information that you want to return to later.

If you remember something about it, then you can search for it (more info on searching in an upcoming blog).

However, it’s a lot quicker and easier to just ‘Add it to Saved Items’. You’ll be able to find it easily in this save list, and if there comes a time that it’s no longer need it – ‘unsave’ it.

Menu

Clicking on the three dots at the end of this mini-toolbar opens up the menu with some really useful options.

As I mentioned earlier – this is the option that has a couple more options in, if it’s a message that you’ve written.

Specifically ‘Edit Message’ and ‘Delete Message’.

Typed in a message and automatically hit return. Then you read what you’ve just shared and realise that it makes no sense. Just edit it.

Likewise – if you’ve typed something in, then it changes – edit it to explain the difference.

Of course if you no longer need this message – or simply want to get rid of it – then use the Delete Message.

Note: You can delete your message, but if others have replied to it (reply in thread) then they will remain.

How does the min-toolbar help me save time?

Ahh – here’s the thing – that depends on you, but here are some thoughts:

Using the Slack mini-toolbar to answer with an emoticon is quick and easy (saving time).

Reply in thread allows you to keep track of the conversation – rather than spending time scrolling up and down the channel looking for replies.

Using the saved items means that you a) don’t have to remember what that interesting thing you saw somewhere was and b) you don’t have to search for it.

Next Steps:

Got questions about using Slack? Book a Call with me, and let’s see how I can help.

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