Privacy Matters: How to Keep Your Slack Active Without Giving Apps Access to Everything

If you’ve ever hovered over an “Allow” button on a Slack app or browser extension and thought,

“Wait, why does this need to read all my messages?”

…you’re not being paranoid.

Many tools that promise to keep your Slack status green or “boost productivity” ask for:

• Broad Slack scopes (channels, messages, DMs, files)
• Browser permissions to “read and change data on all websites you visit”

That’s a lot of access for something that, in theory, just needs to help with presence.

The good news: you don’t have to trade your privacy for a green dot. This guide will help you:

• Understand the permissions these tools often ask for
• Decide what feels reasonable for you and your company
• Find patterns — like Idle Pilot — that focus narrowly on presence instead of everything you do in Slack

For a more security-focused take on specific hacks, you can pair this with Not all “stay online” tools are safe.

The Hidden Cost of Clicking “Allow”

When you’re stressed about looking offline, permission screens can feel like speed bumps — something to click through so you can get back to work.

But from a privacy and security standpoint, those screens are the main line of defense between:

• “This tool can tweak my presence a bit,” and
• “This tool can read every message, file, and DM in my workspace.”

Slack app scopes: more than just presence

Slack apps can request a wide range of scopes, including:

• Reading messages in public channels
• Accessing private channels (if invited)
• Viewing and editing your status
• Reading files and user profiles

Some apps genuinely need broad access (for example, analytics or backup tools). But when a tool whose main job is “keep you online” asks to read channel history, that’s a red flag.

Browser extensions: eyes on everything

Extensions often ask for permissions like:

• “Read and change data on all websites you visit”
• “Access data for sites in this list” (which may include many internal tools)

If all you wanted was “don’t let Slack go idle so quickly,” giving an extension that level of access can be a big leap of faith.

Why Privacy-Conscious Employees Should Care

Even if you feel like you “have nothing to hide,” over-permissive tools can create real risks:

• Accidental exposure – Bugs or misconfigurations could leak more data than intended.
• Vendor compromise – If the tool’s infrastructure is breached, broader scopes mean broader impact.
• Policy trouble – Your company may have strict rules about where messages and files can be accessed or stored.

On a human level, it’s also just uncomfortable knowing a third-party tool could, in theory, read your private team conversations while you’re simply trying to keep your Slack green.

For a deeper look at how companies view these risks, see Can my company see if I’m faking my Slack status?.

How to Evaluate “Stay Online” Tools Before You Trust Them

When you’re looking at any presence-related app or extension, it helps to ask a few simple questions.

1. What is the smallest set of permissions this tool could reasonably need?

For a presence helper, that might be:

• The ability to set or maintain your presence
• Possibly the ability to set your status text or emoji

It usually does not require:

• Access to channel history
• Reading your files
• Monitoring all your browser activity

If the requested scopes go well beyond presence, pause.

2. Does it run in the browser, on your device, or in the cloud?

• Browser extensions can see everything in the pages they’re active on.
• Local apps or scripts run on your corporate machine and may be monitored by IT.
• Cloud services connect directly to Slack’s API and don’t need full visibility into your browser or OS.

Each model has trade-offs, but if privacy is your main concern, account-level cloud tools are easier to reason about than code injected into your browser.

3. Can you easily explain what the tool actually does?

If you’d struggle to describe it in a sentence or two, that’s a sign you might not fully understand what you’re granting.

A Minimal-Access Pattern: Presence-Only, Cloud-Based Helpers

Instead of installing extensions or apps that see everything, you can use a small cloud service like Idle Pilot that:

• Connects directly to your Slack account
• Focuses narrowly on presence, not messages or files
• Runs a cloud worker that keeps you active on a schedule you control
• Requires no desktop install and no browser extension

From a privacy perspective, that means:

• No code running on your corporate laptop
• No extension watching every tab you open
• No bot joining channels or reading conversations

If you’re comparing options, the article on cloud-based alternatives to mouse jigglers and the practical guide on staying active on Slack without being at your computer can help you see how this fits into the broader landscape.

How Idle Pilot Keeps Things Simple for Privacy-Conscious Workers

Idle Pilot is intentionally boring from a permissions standpoint:

• It’s designed to do one job: keep your Slack presence active on a schedule you choose.
• It doesn’t try to read or analyze your messages.
• It doesn’t join channels.
• It doesn’t need your browser history.

That narrow scope makes it:

• Easier to reason about (“this is what it does, and that’s it”)
• Easier to explain if anyone asks (“it keeps my presence aligned with my working hours”)
• Less likely to bump into strict data access policies

If you’re the cautious type, you can combine a tool like Idle Pilot with conservative schedules and honest Slack statuses to keep your presence aligned with reality, not a performance.

Putting It All Together

You don’t have to accept a trade-off between:

• Green dot = surrender your privacy, or
• Privacy = live with constant presence anxiety

Instead, you can:

• Be picky about what permissions you grant and why
• Avoid tools that want to read everything for a simple job
• Favor presence-only, cloud-based helpers like Idle Pilot over browser or device hacks

That way, you keep control over your data, your reputation, and your sanity — while still looking “around today” in Slack during the hours you actually work.

And that’s a much healthier definition of “always online.”