Slack Status: How to Check If Slack Is Down Right Now (2026)
Where to find the official Slack status page, what each component means, and how to diagnose why messages, calls, notifications, or the Slack API are failing.
Is Slack Down Right Now?
Check status.slack.com for official real-time status. Slack tracks Messaging, Connections, Notifications, Search, Calls, Apps, and API components separately.
Slack Status Page Components
The official Slack status page at status.slack.com (powered by Atlassian Statuspage) breaks availability down into these components:
Important: The top-level status indicator can show "Operational" even when individual components are degraded. Always check the component-level rows — a messaging outage might show as "Degraded Performance" while the top banner says everything is fine.
Monitor Slack availability independently
Better Stack checks Slack API endpoints every 30 seconds from multiple global locations. Get alerted the moment Slack starts failing — before your team notices.
Try Better Stack Free →How to Check Slack Status (Step by Step)
Check status.slack.com
The official Slack status page. Look at individual component rows, not just the top-level banner. Check the incident history for recent incidents affecting your region.
Go to Slack Status Page →Test the Slack API health endpoint
If you use the Slack API, ping the test endpoint to verify API availability independently of the status page.
curl https://slack.com/api/api.test
# Returns: {"ok":true} when healthyCheck Slack's Twitter / X
Slack posts incident updates on @SlackHQ and @SlackStatus. For crowd-sourced reports, search "Slack down" on Twitter — you'll often see reports before the status page updates.
Follow @SlackStatus →Check your network and firewall
Slack requires WebSocket connections. Corporate firewalls sometimes block WebSocket traffic on non-standard domains. Test by connecting on a mobile hotspot to rule out local network issues.
Restart the Slack app
Quit Slack completely (not just minimize), clear the app cache if on desktop, and relaunch. This resolves a surprising number of "Slack not working" issues that aren't actual outages.
Common Slack Issues and Causes
| Symptom | Likely Cause | First Check |
|---|---|---|
| Messages not sending | Messaging incident or network issue | status.slack.com → Messaging; try mobile data |
| Slack won't connect | Connections incident or firewall block | status.slack.com → Connections; test on hotspot |
| No push notifications | Notifications incident or OS permissions | status.slack.com → Notifications; OS notification settings |
| Calls/Huddles dropping | Calls incident or network quality/VPN | status.slack.com → Calls; disable VPN; use ethernet |
| Search not returning results | Search service degradation | status.slack.com → Search; try different search terms |
| Slash commands not working | Apps/Integrations incident | status.slack.com → Apps; check app configuration |
| API returning 429 | Rate limiting (not an outage) | Implement exponential backoff; check method tier limits |
| Files not uploading | Posts & Files incident or file size | status.slack.com → Posts & Files; check 1GB limit |
Monitoring Slack API Status Programmatically
Slack provides a machine-readable status API for automated monitoring:
# Current status
curl https://status.slack.com/api/v2.0.0/current
# Returns JSON with:
# - status: "active" | "ok"
# - active_incidents: array of ongoing incidents
# - date_updated: ISO 8601 timestamp
# Quick health check
curl https://slack.com/api/api.test
# Returns: {"ok":true} when healthyThe api.test endpoint is the simplest way to verify Slack API connectivity. If it returns {"ok":true}, the Slack API is reachable from your server. If it returns an error or times out, there's either a Slack API incident or a network/DNS issue.
Slack vs Microsoft Teams: Status Infrastructure
Slack
- Status: status.slack.com
- Uses Atlassian Statuspage
- Owned by Salesforce
- Granular per-component tracking
- WebSocket-based real-time messaging
Microsoft Teams
- Status: admin.microsoft.com (Service Health)
- Uses Microsoft 365 Admin Center
- Part of Microsoft 365 suite
- Requires M365 admin to check status
- Also see: @MSFT365Status on Twitter
What to Do When Slack Is Down
Immediate Steps
- Confirm the outage at status.slack.com
- Subscribe to email incident updates on the status page
- Switch to email or phone for urgent communication
- Check if Slack web app (app.slack.com) works if desktop fails
- Notify your team via a backup channel (email list, group text)
Long-Term Resilience
- Set up independent Slack API uptime monitoring
- Maintain a team email distribution list as backup
- Document on-call phone numbers for critical team members
- Consider a secondary communication channel (Discord, Teams)
- Add Slack status to your monitoring dashboard
Monitor your Slack workspace and bots independently
Better Stack monitors your Slack API endpoints and bots every 30 seconds from 6 global regions. Know about Slack issues the moment they start — not when your team starts complaining.
Try Better Stack Free →Frequently Asked Questions
Where is the official Slack status page?
Slack's official status page is at slack.com/intl/en-us/status (or status.slack.com). It tracks real-time status for Messaging, Connections, Notifications, Search, Calls, Apps, and the Slack API. It's powered by Atlassian Statuspage. For independent third-party monitoring, use apistatuscheck.com/api/slack.
Why are Slack messages not sending?
Slack message failures typically happen because: (1) Messaging component incident — check the Slack status page for the Messaging row, (2) Connectivity issue on your end — check your internet connection; Slack requires WebSocket connections on port 443, (3) Firewall blocking Slack — corporate firewalls sometimes block Slack's WebSocket domains (slack.com, *.slack.com), (4) Slack desktop app needs an update or restart — try quitting and relaunching, (5) Workspace-level incident affecting only your Slack organization. If only some users are affected, it may be a workspace-specific issue rather than a platform-wide outage.
Why do Slack Huddles and Calls keep dropping?
Slack Huddle and Call drops have several causes: (1) Calls component incident — check status.slack.com for the Calls row, (2) Network quality — Slack Calls require low latency; use wired ethernet or move closer to your router, (3) VPN interference — many VPNs degrade Slack Calls quality; try disabling VPN for calls, (4) Bandwidth congestion — Slack Calls use significant bandwidth; close other video streams, (5) Audio/video driver issues on desktop — update your sound card or camera drivers. Slack Huddles use a different audio stack than Calls — if one works and the other doesn't, it's likely a feature-specific issue.
Why are Slack notifications not working?
Missing Slack notifications are usually caused by: (1) Notifications component incident — check the Slack status page, (2) Do Not Disturb enabled — check the bell icon in your Slack sidebar, (3) OS-level notification permissions — on Mac, check System Settings → Notifications → Slack; on Windows, check Action Center settings, (4) Notification schedule settings in Slack preferences, (5) Channel or DM notification settings overriding workspace defaults. Check Preferences → Notifications in Slack to confirm your notification settings haven't changed.
What is the Slack API rate limit?
Slack API rate limits vary by method tier: Tier 1 (1 req/min), Tier 2 (20 req/min), Tier 3 (50 req/min), Tier 4 (100+ req/min). The chat.postMessage method used for sending messages is Tier 3 (50/min per workspace). Slack's Events API is not rate-limited from the platform side — your endpoint must respond within 3 seconds. If you're seeing 429 errors, implement exponential backoff. Check the Slack API documentation for each method's specific tier. Rate limit errors are not outages — they're expected behavior when apps send too many requests.
How do I check Slack status programmatically?
Slack provides a status API at slack.com/api/api.test (simple health check) and the official status API at status.slack.com/api/v2.0.0/current. The current endpoint returns JSON with the overall status and a list of active incidents. For production monitoring, set up an external uptime monitor (Better Stack, Datadog, etc.) to ping api.slack.com/api/api.test every minute and alert on failures. This gives you independent monitoring independent of Slack's self-reported status.
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