As the first work week of 2021 has kicked off today, Slack is seeing what looks like a widespread outage that’s preventing users from sending messages, loading channels, or in some cases connecting at all.
12:10 pm PT:
In December 2015, Slack launched their software application ('app') directory, consisting of over 150 integrations that users can install. In March 2018, Slack announced a partnership with financial and human capital management firm Workday. This integration allows Workday customers to access Workday features directly from the Slack interface. How to Join Multiple Slack Teams on PC or Mac. This wikiHow teaches you how to sign into multiple Slack workspaces on one computer. If you're using Windows, you'll usually find it in the menu. How to Write Italic Text on Slack on PC or Mac. This wikiHow teaches you how to type italicized text in a Slack chat when you're on a computer. If you're using the desktop app, click Slack in the Applications folder (macOS).
For any customers unable to access Slack, please refresh using CMD/CTRL + SHIFT + O. If you encounter any trouble, please let us know at feedback@slack.com.
We’ll have a separate post on this site for the outstanding calendar apps and email notifications trouble.
We’re truly sorry for the disruption today. We’ll be back with a summary of this issue.
Note: we have edited the message to ask users to refresh their client entirely, as opposed to the reload instructions we shared before (CMD/CTRL + R).
11:28 am PT:
We’re seeing improvements with error rates on our side, and we believe affected customers should be able to access Slack.
We’re continuing to work to resolve the trouble with calendar apps and email notifications.
10:51 am PT:
For those customers who are unable to access Slack (e.g. seeing a blank screen or error), please try reloading (CTRL/CMD + R). Otherwise, please hold off on reloading, as this could prevent you from accessing Slack.
In addition, Google Calendar and Outlook Calendar aren’t working as expected, and some email notifications (e.g. a notification of a new direct message in Slack) are failing to send.
10:00 am PT: Visual studio community for mac. “Some customers may be able to connect, but may also experience degraded performance. We’re continuing to work to resolve the issue.”
9:29 am PT: Slack says “While the issue is largely still ongoing, we believe some customers may see improvement in connecting to Slack after a refresh (CTRL/CMD + R).”
8:52 am PT: No luck yet with Slack solving the outage or discovering more…
Update 8:20 am PT: Slack shared that this is officially an outage and “All hands are on deck.” We’ll learn more in about 30 minutes.
We’re continuing to investigate connection issues for customers, and have upgraded the incident on our side to reflect an outage in service. All hands are on deck on our end to further investigate. We’ll be back in a half hour to keep you posted.
As we often see with Slack outages, today’s issues come and go for some with delays to receiving and sending messages or seeing failed messages.
Slack Mac Application
However, it sounds like the Slack downtime is worse for some as the company notes that “Customers may experience issues connecting to Slack to loading channels at this time.”
No word yet on what’s causing the problem but Slack is working on a solution.
The outage started around 7 am PT this morning. Thousands of users are reporting the issue on Down Detector, with 70% of them so far noting they’re not able to connect to Slack and 28% having trouble sending messages. There are reports coming in from all over the world about the outage.
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Walk into any modern office today and you’ll inevitably realize how deeply Slack has infiltrated our working lives. What used to be a swarm of internal emails has now turned into hundreds or even thousands of instant messages every day. By now we almost involuntarily keep the Slack app open on our screens at all times.
No wonder then that for most of us, Slack not only never reaches its full performance potential, but can actually slow down our machines. Running the app continuously, in some cases, results in it devouring nearly 4GB of RAM. There should be a better option.
How to speed up Slack on Mac?
Slack’s principal weakness lies in its strength. Impressively, the app is able to run on iPhone, Android, Windows Phone, Linux, Windows, and Mac, as well as all major browsers for the web version. To optimally support this large codebase, Slack has opted to build what’s called progressive apps over native ones. What progressive means is that the app on your device is essentially a shell for the web app, which requires continuous internet connectivity to function.
The culprit then for Slack slowness is the combination of the app demanding to be online and transferring lots of data in the form of messages and updates. But fear not, there are a few tricks you can use to speed up Slack on your Mac.
1. Switch to faster Wi-Fi
That simple. If the app you want to run requires continuous internet connection, then upgrading your Wi-Fi will ensure that there are fewer offline moments. Higher download speeds from your ISP diminish the chance of lags. As a general rule of thumb, always get the fastest internet available in your area, whether it’s your home or office. Once you have that, getting a professional-level wireless router will solidify the result.
2. Delete your cached files
If you are using the web version of Slack and have noticed it slowing down lately, you should try clearing your cache. Every time you visit any website, your browser saves certain bits of information to load the page faster next time. But eventually your browser cache will in fact slow down your web performance. So it’s good to remember to delete cached files once in a while (e.g. once a month).
To clear cache in Google Chrome (other browsers work similarly):
Slack Mac App Download
- Go to the triple-dot Menu button > More Tools > Clear browsing data…
- Select the time range you want to delete the data from
- Check the box next to “Cached Images and Files”
- Click Clear Browsing Data
3. Minimize RAM usage
Most of the time, sluggish app performance has little to do with how powerful your processor is and everything with how much RAM is at the app’s disposal. As Slack is being used constantly throughout the day, it tends to consume a lot of memory, even when it’s the web version (then your browser consumes the memory instead).
To free up much needed memory, take a look at how much exactly is being spent on any of the apps at the moment:
- Launch Activity Monitor from Applications
- Switch tabs to Memory and make note of the apps at the top of the list
- Quit all the apps you don’t need right away
If closing the apps and focusing on as few tasks at a time as possible doesn’t bring any significant results, try restarting your Mac, which will reset RAM usage back to zero.
4. Automate your Mac’s optimization with CleanMyMac
While going through your Mac optimization checklist once might seem not so bad, doing it repeatedly every month will soon turn into a chore. Luckily, there is a solution that takes care of all these things automatically — CleanMyMac X.
CleanMyMac X is able to clear the cache and optimize your whole computer in a single click. To do that:
- Download CleanMyMac X (free trial available).
- Choose Smart Scan in the left-side panel and click Scan.
- Proceed to Review Details… and press Run.
The app will instantly get your computer in top shape. For a more thorough cleanup, go through the same process in the Optimization and Privacy tabs, the latter of which also allows you to clear all cached data from your browser.
Now your Mac is ready to take on Slack! Just remember to repeat the optimization process from time to time, whether you are doing it manually or using a more convenient and thorough one-click solution from CleanMyMac X.