Start Slack Minimized on Ubuntu 18.04

Posted on October 9, 2018 by Ahmed Tawfik

It might seem silly, but I just hate having to see the Slack Connection window every time I start my computer. I just wanted it to start minimized, no big deal!

To start it minimized, just append -u to the command, e.g.

slack -u

screenshot

Enjoy!

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About Ahmed Tawfik

Cybersecurity Professional, Systems Engineer, OSS & Linux Geek
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9 Responses to Start Slack Minimized on Ubuntu 18.04

  1. Kenny's avatar Kenny says:
    December 27, 2018 at 8:01 pm

    OMFG this was driving me crazy. I was trying to do this with Devilspie2 with no luck. Thank you!

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  2. zn's avatar zn says:
    April 14, 2019 at 12:53 am

    If you have Gnome autostart Slack, and slack is installed from flathub, you can get rid of annoyance by changing exec line in ~/.config/autostart/com.slack.Slack.desktop into something like:
    Exec=sh -c “/usr/bin/flatpak run –branch=stable –arch=x86_64 –command=slack –file-forwarding com.slack.Slack –startup @@u %U @@ & sleep 12 ; /usr/bin/wmctrl -c slack”

    Dependency is a wmctrl package.

    This is tested in CentOS 7 with Gnome 3.28, wmctrl from EPEL repo, and slack 3.3.8 from flathub.

    It should work with Slack installed from a package with a slightly different exec.

    Key is in –startup(equivalent to -u) switch, and giving wmctrl some time with sleep command for slack to initialise. Number can be varied based on a speed of Slack initialisation.

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  3. zn's avatar zn says:
    April 14, 2019 at 12:56 am

    It not only minimizes Slack, but also kills the initial minimized window and leaves Slack happily live in a tray.

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  4. Serg's avatar Serg says:
    February 28, 2020 at 10:59 am

    any alternative for 19.10?

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  5. RavanH's avatar RavanH says:
    November 24, 2023 at 1:04 pm

    Adding this to Startup Applications still works in Ubuntu 23.10 and much better than the app’s own “Launch on Login” option 🙂

    I tried to find this launch flag with slack -h (or –help) but that showed nothing.

    Thanks for saving the day!

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