Use Slack ‘Clips’ to Avoid Brief, Pointless Meetings

If remote work has taught us anything, it’s that many of our meetings are unnecessary and overly complicated, especially if teams are spread across time zones. Unless collaboration is essential to the agenda, we can often get everything we need in just a few minutes on our own time. Slack has been working on a tool for our collective “this meeting could have been an email” problem: And its solution — “clips” — is now rolling out to the general public.

With the clips feature, you can record audio or video (with screen sharing) up to 3 minutes long and send the clips via DM or in a channel. Video clips are automatically transcribed with the option to enable captions.

While clips may be intended primarily for work-related communication, you can also use them for fun. Just know that clips are not like Snapchat or Instagram stories — they are retained using the same rules your company has for every other Slack message and do not disappear or expire automatically.

How to create and send video clips on Slack

To create a clip in the desktop app, start a new message or navigate to the DM or channel you want to send your clip to. Then:

1. Click the camera icon and select which screen you want to share (if you’re doing a screen recording). You can also add screen sharing mid-recording if you want to start with a regular video.
2. Click Record when you want to start and Stop Recording when you’re done.
3. Click Next. Adding a message here is optional.
4. Hit Return or the paper plane icon to send your clip.

If you need to choose a different camera or mic for your recording, you’ll find this under Settings (click the gear icon).

The steps are similar for Slack in your browser as well as on your mobile device. On iOS, tap the camera icon and select Video > Record. To complete your clip, tap Record > Use Video and then add a message and send. On Android, tap the camera icon followed by the video camera icon. Hit Record to start and Record (again) to stop, then Attach to add a message and send.

If you want to use captions on a video clip, select the CC icon when playing it back. You can also read the transcript (click the three vertical lines on the video).

How to create and send audio clips on Slack

To create an audio clip on your desktop, click the microphone icon, which starts the recording. Tap the checkmark when you’re done, add a message and send.

The process for creating audio clips on your mobile app is almost the same as making a video — simply press and hold the microphone icon while you record.

If you can’t find the camera and/or microphone icons, you may not have access to clips yet. Plus, this feature is only available on paid plans.