How to Keep Teams and Slack Active at the Same Time

If your company runs Microsoft Teams and Slack side by side — one for the org, one for a specific team or client — you've probably noticed you can be green in one and away in the other. That's not a bug. The two apps decide "active" using different rules, so a single trick usually only fixes half the problem.

Here's what's actually different, and the setups that keep both dots green.

The key difference: what each app watches

This is the whole reason keeping both active is annoying.

Slack, per its availability docs, only counts interaction inside Slack itself — typing or clicking in another window does nothing. Microsoft Teams is the opposite: it reads OS-level keyboard and mouse activity, so working in _any_ app keeps Teams green (Microsoft doesn't expose a setting to change the 5-minute threshold).

So the same afternoon of heads-down work in your code editor keeps Teams active and lets Slack drift to away. And Teams' timer is shorter, so it trips first if you truly stop touching the keyboard.

Why one trick doesn't cover both

• • A mouse jiggler moves the cursor at the OS level. Great for Teams — any movement counts. Weak for Slack, because the movement only registers if the cursor happens to be sitting over the Slack window. We compared jigglers in depth in Slack Green vs mouse jigglers.
• • Clicking around in Slack keeps Slack green but, if that's the only thing you do, Teams' shorter timer can still trip when you pause.
• • Locking your screen drops both, regardless of anything else.

That mismatch is why people end up layering fixes. Let's make it deliberate instead.

Setups that keep both green

1. Desk work, cursor parked on Slack

If you're at your machine most of the day, put a mouse jiggler (hardware is cleaner than software) to work and leave the cursor over the Slack window. The jiggling satisfies Teams (OS-level activity) and Slack (movement over its window) at once. Downside: your laptop has to stay awake and unlocked, and software jigglers are the first thing corporate device monitoring flags.

2. Stepping away, both apps

For breaks or off-screen focus time, OS-level tricks stop helping the moment your screen locks. This is where a scheduled, server-side presence tool earns its place — it refreshes your Slack presence from a server, so Slack stays green even with the laptop closed. Pair it with Teams' own "keep me signed in" behavior on a second device, or accept that Teams will show away when your machine is genuinely locked.

3. Match your status to your hours

The least hands-on approach is to stop chasing the dot minute-to-minute and set a schedule that reflects when you actually work. For Slack, Slack Green does this — you authenticate your session, set your work hours, and it keeps you active during them and away outside them, no app open. There's no equivalent that also drives Teams without running on your machine, so for Teams you'll still lean on an OS-level jiggler or an open session.

The honest limitation

There is no single button that pins both apps green while your computer is locked. Teams presence is tied fairly tightly to real OS activity, which is exactly why a mouse jiggler works better for it than for Slack — and why a server-side tool works better for Slack than for Teams. If keeping both green matters, expect a two-part setup, and read will I get caught first if either app is on a managed work device.

If you only care about the Slack half, the full rundown of Slack methods covers every option and where each one breaks.