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Slack seems to limit the number of contacts shown in my sidebar's direct messages section to 10 or 11 contacts. If I start a direct message with somebody new, another conversation is removed from the sidebar.

I'm now displaying "All my channels and DM". I tried the other sidebar options, but they don't seem to do what I want.

My colleagues don't have this behavior. Is there a way to disable it or set another limit?

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7
  • 15
    yes! this is soooooo annoying
    – Kirk Strobeck
    Commented Sep 21, 2016 at 20:41
  • Still an issue 6 months later
    – Mike Causer
    Commented Apr 3, 2017 at 0:09
  • 8
    This is one of the "Features" I hate the most in Slack. Sure I can Ctrl+k to get the person I'm looking for, but I'd rather see them along side with their online status. I don't mind if I have to scroll more for this.
    – leedch
    Commented Feb 13, 2018 at 16:16
  • What do you mean you're now displaying "All my channels and DM"?
    – Michael Terry
    Commented Feb 27, 2018 at 18:03
  • 1
    Still an issue 4 years later
    – Luke Griffiths
    Commented Nov 6, 2020 at 23:34

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
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--Update. On desktop, you can STAR a message by right clicking the conversation and clicking "Star conversation". On mobile, open the conversation, and then tap the "View Details" button at the top. You'll then see the STAR icon on the top right.

Open a direct message and STAR it to keep it showing on the sidebar. This is very useful because it does remove any duplicates that would show up in the direct messages part of the sidebar, so you still have plenty of space.

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    This confused me for a long time. I tried to star a DM from one of my colleagues and nothing happened. I didn't notice you could star the user themselves underneath their name in the DM pane.
    – Michael Terry
    Commented May 9, 2018 at 18:52
  • 12
    This is a good temporary fix, although I still think Slack should let you adjust how many DM's you want to display under Direct Messages.
    – Trevor Jex
    Commented Aug 16, 2018 at 17:50
  • 1
    Seems like a legit fix to me. Anything you don't want to go away, you just star.
    – Mark
    Commented Dec 20, 2019 at 17:05
  • OK then.... how do I automatically star every conversation so they don't get lost? You can't expect users like me (with memory of a fish) to remember all conversations. Some things take a few days/weeks to resolve. Is there at least a history??
    – Jaime Espinosa
    Commented Jan 7, 2021 at 19:00
  • @JaimeEspinosa you can click the All DMs button to see recent threads. It's in the left side bar above your starred threads.
    – Gandalf458
    Commented Jan 13, 2021 at 1:16
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You can "Star" direct messages and or Channels. In the Direct messages to Person-A type "/star " and Slack will create a new heading group called "Starred" (if it doesn't already exist), and place the Person-A direct message under it. Same works for Channels. This means that you can stop worrying about Direct Messages for Person-A dropping off the Direct Messages list, as they will now stay permanently under the "Starred" heading.

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    Thank you for actually explaining HOW to do this. In the past I starred a message before, but it didn't do anything. Sending a person a "/star" as message fixes the issue, plus it's only visible to you.
    – Malachi
    Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 12:55
  • WTF, I don't want to star shit. I can afford to scroll and/or possibly reorganize and pull more important things up if I need to. Shit diseappearing is seriously kind of bad design. If you have a group chat going on they will disappear and you have to re-add all to it. Why can't they just let people scroll and organize as they see fit.
    – mjs
    Commented Nov 3, 2023 at 8:14
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Use Slack's New Sidebar Editor. Create a new "Direct Messages" Section, and move your team / DMs into that new section.

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-3

Try to add contacts from plus sign before "DIRECT MESSAGES". It solved problem for me.

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