Is Slack Down? How to Check and What to Do If It’s Not Working

For many organizations, Slack has become a core part of daily operations—handling messaging, file shares, workflows and integrations across teams. So when Slack appears to stop working—or slow down significantly—it can feel like the entire workplace is disrupted.

This article will walk you through how to determine whether Slack is down globally, whether the issue is just happening for you, common root causes of outages, and what actions you can take to minimise impact while waiting for full service restoration.

How to Check If Slack Is Down

The first step is verifying whether the issue is widespread or isolated to your account or network. Here are reliable methods:

• Visit the Slack status dashboard at status.slack.com. At the time of writing it shows “No Issues” across core features. :contentReference[oaicite:1]{index=1}
• Check independent outage-tracking sites like Downdetector where users report issues in real time. Current reports for Slack show “no current problems”. :contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}
• Monitor Slack’s official social media or the “Slack Status” account for incident announcements. Note: some past incidents were reported via media coverage. :contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}

If these sources show no widespread problem, the issue is likely local (your network, device or workspace settings) rather than Slack being globally down.

Recent Notable Outages

Slack has had several publicised outages in recent years, which help illustrate how such events unfold:

• On February 26, 2025, Slack confirmed problems with login, message sending and thread loading for many users. :contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}
• Reports from multiple countries indicated that integrations, API endpoints and message delivery were affected during the incident. :contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}

These examples show that even major services can be disrupted — and knowing how to respond helps organisations mitigate impact.

Common Causes of Slack Downtime

When Slack isn’t working properly, the root cause often falls into one of these categories:

• Platform-wide service incident: A breakdown at Slack’s backend infrastructure—servers, networking, databases or APIs—can affect many users globally.
• Regional / network issue: Localised data centre or internet provider problems can cause users in a region to lose connectivity even though Slack remains up elsewhere.
• Workspace or account specific issue: Problems with a particular Slack workspace configuration, integration, plugin or custom workflow may block functionality just for that workspace.
• Device or application issue: The Slack desktop or mobile app may have a local cache or authentication problem, outdated version or conflict with other software.

Troubleshooting When Slack Appears Down

If you’ve determined that Slack is not down globally, here's a step-by-step checklist to isolate and resolve your issue:

1. Check your internet connection: Confirm you can browse other websites and that your network isn’t blocking Slack domains.
2. Visit the Slack status page: Confirm whether Slack is showing an incident. If yes — wait for updates.
3. Restart Slack or try a different device: On desktop, quit and relaunch Slack; on mobile, force-close the app and reopen. You can also try using the Slack web client in a browser to see if the issue persists.
4. Clear cache or reinstall: On desktop, clearing Slack’s cache or reinstalling the app can fix corrupted files or authentication issues.
5. Check workspace integrations: If you can access Slack but not certain channels or workflows, inspect whether a newly added plugin or workflow is causing instability.
6. Contact IT or Slack Support: If the issue affects many users in your organisation, escalate with your IT team or file a support ticket with Slack including your workspace ID, affected user count and error messages.

Best Practices to Mitigate Impact of Slack Outages

Since Slack is critical for many workflows, adopting these practices can reduce disruption during an outage:

• Keep alternative communication channels ready: Use email, phone calls or another chat system as backup when Slack is unavailable.
• Establish an outage protocol: Define roles and procedures for your team: who announces the outage, when to switch to backup, and how to restore workflows.
• Monitor integrations and workflows: Regularly review third-party apps, workflows and bots in Slack that can introduce instability and increase outage risk.
• Educate users: Make sure your team knows to check status.slack.com and follow the outage protocol rather than assuming it’s ‘just their laptop’. This reduces duplicate tickets and confusion.

When Slack Is Actually Down: What to Expect

When you’ve confirmed a platform-wide outage on Slack’s status dashboard, you’ll typically see the following progression:

• Initial detection:
• Impact assessment:
• Restoration phase:
• Post-incident review:

During the February 2025 outage, Slack confirmed impacting API endpoints, message sending/receiving and some thread loading. :contentReference[oaicite:7]{index=7}

Conclusion

In short: No, Slack isn’t necessarily down just because you’re seeing issues. But yes — outages happen, and when they do, they disrupt teams significantly. By checking status.slack.com, observing independent outage reports, and following a structured troubleshooting and communications protocol, you can determine whether it’s a company-wide problem or something local to you.

Preparing in advance — knowing your backup channels, outage protocol and team expectations — ensures you’re ready for the next time Slack hiccups. And when Slack is finally back up, you’ll be one step ahead, ready to get conversations flowing again.