Why Does Slack Pause My Notifications? How to Unpause Them

To unpause Slack notifications now, click your profile picture, hover over Notifications (it reads Paused), and click Resume notifications. Typing /dnd off in any message box does the same. Slack pauses your notifications on its own because of your working hours. Outside the hours you allow, Slack pauses every alert and shows a small z next to your name. Many people never set these hours and still have them. In our own Slack account the setting read Weekdays, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM when we checked it on October 1, 2026. To fix it, click your profile picture, choose Preferences, open Availability, and widen Allow notifications under Working hours.

If the hours look right, the other causes are an admin default schedule, a status with Pause notifications ticked, a forgotten /dnd command, focus mode, and your phone's own Focus or Do Not Disturb.

Where the schedule lives: Preferences, Availability, Working hours

This is the setting in the Slack web app. The text above the menu says it plainly: "You'll only receive notifications in the hours you choose. Outside of those times, notifications will be paused." With Weekdays chosen, Slack adds "You won't receive notifications on Saturday or Sunday."

The same dialog opens from the profile menu: click your profile picture, hover over Notifications, and click Edit your working hours. The choices are Every day, Weekdays or Custom, in 30-minute steps.

We read the result from Slack's API too. dnd.info for our account returned a next pause starting at 17:00 and ending at 09:00 the next morning, the same hours as the setting. The schedule has no off switch, and an open Slack tab did not pick up new hours until we reloaded it; that minute-by-minute test is in Slack notification schedule.

Six reasons Slack pauses your notifications

1. Your working hours

This is the most common cause, covered above. If you work evenings or weekends, choose Every day or Custom and set the hours you want alerts.

2. An admin set default hours

Workspace owners and admins can set default Do Not Disturb hours for everyone, under Admin, Settings & permissions, Do Not Disturb. In our workspace that default was on, from 5:00 PM to 9:00 AM, the mirror image of the 9-to-5 working hours on our account.

Slack's help center says your own hours override the default. If you never touched the setting and still see a pause at the same time each day, set your own hours once.

3. Your status paused them

When you set a status, Slack offers a Pause notifications checkbox. If you tick it, notifications stay paused until the status clears. In our test on September 30, 2026, clearing such a status ended the pause and also skipped the rest of that night's scheduled pause. Typing /dnd off afterwards brought the schedule back; Slack answered "I've turned scheduled Do Not Disturb back on for you." How status timers work is in Slack keeps clearing my status.

4. A /dnd or a pause you forgot

The Notifications item in the profile menu pauses for 30 minutes, 1 hour, 2 hours, Until tomorrow, Until next week or a Custom time. /dnd until tomorrow morning does the same from the message box. Any of these, set and forgotten, keeps you paused.

When notifications are on, the menu shows Notifications On, as in the screenshot.

How to unpause: what the menu shows while you are paused

We paused and resumed notifications in our test workspace on 7 October 2026. After we chose 30 minutes, the menu item changed to Notifications Paused, and its submenu held a single item: Resume notifications, with "Paused until 10:35 AM" under it. The pause lengths and Edit your working hours are not in that submenu while you are paused. The label on our profile picture changed from "Active" to "Active, notifications snoozed".

Clicking Resume notifications ended the pause at once. Slack's dnd.info method went from snooze_enabled: true to false, and the 5 PM to 9 AM schedule stayed as it was, so the pause comes back at the end of your working hours. Typing /dnd off in any message box also resumes. The full command list is in our Slack Do Not Disturb guide.

5. Focus mode

Focus mode pauses notifications. In our account, Availability also had In focus mode ticked under automatic statuses, so starting focus mode sets that status too. If you started it and walked away, it can still be on.

6. Your phone, not Slack

iOS Focus and Android Do Not Disturb silence Slack on that phone only. Slack does not know about them, so you see no z next to your name, and resuming notifications in Slack changes nothing. Allow Slack in your phone's Focus or Do Not Disturb exceptions.

How to stop Slack from pausing notifications

• Click your profile picture and choose Preferences.
• Open Availability. Under Working hours, set Allow notifications to Every day, or widen the hours to cover your whole working day.
• Resume now: click your profile picture, hover over Notifications, and click Resume notifications, or type /dnd off.

What "Active, notifications snoozed" means

If a profile says active with notifications snoozed or paused, the person is at Slack right now and their notifications are paused. In our test the label read exactly "Active, notifications snoozed" while our own pause ran. Their dot is green with a small z on it. Messages still arrive; they get no banner or sound until notifications resume. Every combination of dot and z is in the green dot with a z in Slack.

If Slack shows no pause and you still miss alerts, the cause is elsewhere, such as a muted channel or phone alerts held while you are active on the desktop. Those cases are in Slack notifications not working.

FAQ

Can someone reach me while my notifications are paused?

Yes. When they send you a DM, Slack's help center says they can choose to notify you anyway. People on your VIP list also get through on paid plans.

Does pausing notifications make me look away?

No. Others see a z next to your name, but your dot stays green while you are active.