docs/main/end-user-guide/preferences/customize-your-channel-sidebar.mdx
Conversations in Mattermost are crucial to company productivity and success. Keeping conversations organized in the sidebar creates an efficient workplace. Using a web browser or the desktop app, you can customize your own channel sidebar based on how you prefer to use Mattermost. Customizations you make are only visible to you, are visible when using the mobile app, and won't affect what your teammates see in their sidebars.
Here's how your sidebar is set up by default:
Using Mattermost in a web browser or the desktop app, you can customize your sidebar in the following ways:
Create custom categories to group channels together for quicker and easier navigation. For example, you can create a category called "Design" or "Marketing".
To create categories, select the + symbol at the top of the sidebar. Or, select the More options icon in the sidebar on any category header, then select Create New Category.
<Note>When channel category sorting is enabled (the default from Mattermost v11.8), you can assign channels to new or existing channel categories when creating channels and renaming channels.
</Note>Next, type a category name, select Create, then drag any channels or direct messages into this new category. You can also multi-select channels and direct messages to drag them together as a group by pressing <kbd>Ctrl</kbd> or <kbd>Shift</kbd> and selecting on Windows or Linux, or <kbd>⌘</kbd> or <kbd>⇧</kbd> and selecting on Mac. See the section drag and drop selections below for details.
Your custom categories can't be shared with other Mattermost users.
All channels and direct message conversations in the deleted category move back to their default Channels and Direct Messages categories. Deleting a category never removes you from channels you have joined.
Once you've created categories, you can move channels around to organize your sidebar by dragging and dropping, or by moving.
To select multiple channels:
Using the Mattermost web or desktop app, drag selected channels and/or direct messages between or within categories.
<Tip>Multi-selected channels and direct messages move together as a group in the order they originally appeared.
</Tip>In addition to selecting and dragging, you can specify a category destination for selected channels and/or direct messages. To do this, select the Channel options icon in the sidebar and then select Move to.
You can also specify a category destination for the current channel or conversation using the Move to option directly from the channel header. Channels that have been moved to a category will display a checkmark next to the category name.
When you mute or unmute a category, all channels within that category are also muted or unmuted. You can selectively unmute specific channels within a muted category.
Select the Category options icon in the sidebar, then select Mute Category.
Once a category is muted:
To unmute the category, select the Category options icon in the sidebar, then select Unmute Category.
When you mark a channel category as read, all channels within that category are marked as read. You can selectively mark specific channels as unread where preferred.
Select the Category options icon in the sidebar, then select Mark category as read.
Select the Category options icon in the sidebar, then select Sort and choose from Alphabetically, Recent Activity, or Manually.
By default, Mattermost provides a one-click Unreads filter to only show channels with unread activity. Alternatively, you may choose to automatically group unread channels in their own category at the top of your sidebar.
Go to Settings > Sidebar, set Group unread channels separately to On, then select Save.
When enabled, unread channels with mentions will sort to the top of the category.
<Tip>If you prefer to see only unread channels in their respective categories, we recommend collapsing your custom categories and disabling Group unread channels separately under Settings > Sidebar.
</Tip>To sort your direct messages, select the Channel options icon in the sidebar, then select Sort and choose from Alphabetically or Recent Activity.
Control how many direct message conversations display in the Direct Messages category to keep your conversations manageable. You can choose to show all messages or a fixed number of messages.
To configure the number of direct messages to display, go to Settings > Sidebar, then set Number of direct messages to show. Or select the Channel options icon in the sidebar, then select Show.
Choose to show 10, 15, 20, or 40 messages. Once you exceed the number of direct messages configured, older messages are hidden from the Direct Messages category. You can always increase the number of conversations displayed to see older direct messages.
<Note>Direct message conversations that you add to custom categories don't count against the maximum number of conversations shown in the Direct Messages category.
</Note>Channel category names can include emojis. Specify the emoji by its name in the format :smile:. We recommend prefixing channel category names with emojis for the following reasons:
When you collapse a channel category, only unread channels display to reduce unnecessary scrolling. When you expand a channel category, all channels in the category display, including channels with unread messages.
Drag to reorder entire categories to prioritize important conversations.
Select and drag direct messages into any category. You can also multi-select direct messages to drag them together as a group.