How to translate Slack messages

Working in a team that chats in a language you're still learning? Here is how to keep up in Slack without leaving the conversation.

Slack in the browser

The best experience. Open Slack at app.slack.com in Chrome, Firefox, Edge or Opera with the Mate extension, or in Safari on Mac with the Mac app's Safari extension. Select a message and click the floating Mate button, or press Shift+T. Double-click a word to translate just that word.

Slack desktop app on Mac

The Slack app doesn't offer the macOS Services menu, so use the clipboard: turn on Auto-translate clipboard in Mate's Settings › General, then select the message, press Cmd+C and Option+Shift+T. Mate opens with the translation. See Translate selected text in any Mac app.

Slack on iPhone and iPad

Press and hold a message and tap Copy text, then press and hold Mate's Home Screen icon and tap Paste and Translate. On iOS 18.4+, if Slack lets you select the text, tap Translate in the selection menu with Mate as the default translator.

Writing messages

Type in Mate, pick the Advanced or AI style, copy and paste. With Automatically copy translation on (Mac, Settings › General), the translation is in the clipboard as soon as it appears. Work chat is usually informal but polite; Auto tone handles it well.

Threads and long messages

Selecting across several messages in the browser works fine; Mate translates the whole selection as one text, up to 20,000 characters on Mac.