Slack and email side by side, without losing your work
Keep chat and mail in view without letting them cover what you are working on: sizes, placement and settings that keep both handy but out of the way.
Stack them: Slack and Mail in one column, one above the other, in a third of the screen, with your work in the other two thirds. Both stay in view and neither takes much width.
Making them fit narrow
- In Slack, collapse the sidebar (⇧ ⌘ D) so messages get the width.
- In Mail, use a layout without the preview pane, or hide the mailbox list.
- Turn on compact density in apps that offer it.
Or out of view, one move away
If seeing new messages pulls you off task, keep them out of view instead, and check on your own schedule. See deep work on a Mac.
Doing it on the strip
In ClutterFreeMac, put Slack and Mail in one column as a stack (⌃ ⌥ ] stacks a window into the column beside it) and keep that column at the start of the strip. Glance left when you want them, work on the right when you don't.
Questions
How do I keep Slack and Mail open while I work on a Mac?
Put them one above the other in a narrow column at the side of the screen, so your main work keeps most of the width.
Read next
- Guide
Editor and browser side by side on a Mac, without the shuffle
Change code, look at the result. Ways to keep an editor and a browser next to each other on one Mac screen, and how to fit the dev tools in too.
Read › - Guide
An Xcode window layout that leaves room for everything
Xcode wants the whole screen. How to tame it with its own panels, tabs and windows, and fit the Simulator, docs and a browser beside it.
Read › - Guide
An Obsidian window layout on a Mac: panes, pop outs and the rest
Split panes, open notes in new windows, and place Obsidian beside your browser or PDFs. How to arrange it for writing and research on a Mac.
Read ›