Focus mode & tidying the sidebar menu
Remove the distractions, tune each project, and make the workspace your own.
Focus mode — hide the sidebar and header
Enter with a shortcut
Mod + \\ (⌘+\\ on Mac, Ctrl+\\ on Windows) — toggles from anywhere.
Daily notes and Wiki pages
You can also enter with the ⛶ icon in the header. A brief 'Press ESC to exit' notice appears at the top right.
Exiting
Press Esc, or the X button at the bottom right. It is a toggle, so Mod+\\ works again too.
When you are writing at length or deep in a code block, the sidebars and header on either side pull your eyes away. Focus mode hides everything outside the content and leaves just the body in the middle.
Sidebar menu visibility (per project)
Open the settings
Go to Project → Project settings → the 'Menu' tab. Admin permission is required.
Toggle a menu
Turn the toggle at the right of each menu on or off — documents, board, calendar, D-Day, databases, Planning, chat, and so on. Changes apply to every member.
Hidden menus are blocked
A hidden menu does not open even if you type its address directly.
Turn off the menus a project does not use. In a project that only runs on chat, for example, you can hide documents, calendar, databases, and goal tracking to keep the sidebar clean.
Global sidebar section visibility
Your own sidebar (the workspace area) can be toggled section by section too, not only per project. Show or hide dashboard, calendar, memos, notifications, collaboration, and the rest under Settings → Appearance → Sidebar sections.
Resizing the sidebar
Drag the edge
Hover over the right edge of the sidebar and a resize handle appears. Drag it to the right to make the sidebar wider.
Back to the default
Double-click the edge to go back to the default width. Without a mouse, press Tab until the handle is selected, then use the arrow keys.
Collapse it entirely
The panel icon at the bottom of the sidebar collapses it down to just the icons. While it is collapsed, the resize handle is hidden.
If project or channel names keep getting cut off, widen the sidebar. The width you choose is saved in this browser and restored the next time you open the app.
Tips
- For a long writing session, combine focus mode with a full-screen browser window (F11)
- As a project owner, turn on only part of the menu while onboarding new members, then add more as they settle in
- In the desktop app, focus mode plus the global shortcut (Cmd+Shift+K) is the strongest combination
- On mobile, the ⛶ button at the top right of the header is the way into focus mode