Slack open in browser userscript
              21 Sep 2026 12:57
==============================================

I despise Slack very much and try to use it as
little as possible. Sometimes, however, I have
no choice but to message a colleague or a
friend, so I refuse to download the Slack app
because I don't want it open all the time. One
thing that really annoyed me was that whenever
you clicked on a Slack channel from the main
Slack homepage, it would do two things:

It would try to open Slack in the app, which I
didn't have installed, so it would require me
to click "Open in Browser" or "Continue in
Browser."

It would open Slack workspaces in a new tab,
which was very frustrating because I don't
need the Slack homepage open in my browser.

I wrote a small userscript that bypasses and
disables the new tab opening and automatically
clicks the "Continue in Browser" button when
it appears.

// ==UserScript==
// @name Slack Browser UX Enhancements
// @description Keeps Slack in the browser and
prevents workspace links opening new tabs
// @version 1.0.1
// @author @tdrayson
// @namespace
https://github.com/tdrayson/userscripts
// @match https://*.slack.com/*
// @match https://*.slack.com/ssb/redirect*
// @match https://*.slack.com/archives/*
// @icon
https://www.google.com/s2/favicons?sz=64&domain=slack.com
// @run-at document-end
// @grant none
// ==/UserScript==

(function () {
'use strict';

const textVariations = [
'use slack in your browser',
'open in browser',
'continue in browser',
'stay in browser',
'open this link in your browser',
];

let browserLinkClicked = false;

function disableNewTabOpening() {
const links = document.querySelectorAll(
'a.ss-c-workspace-detail__action,
a.workspace-list-item'
);

if (links.length === 0) return;

links.forEach((link) => {
if (link.target === '_blank') {
link.target = '_self';
}
});
}

function clickBrowserLink() {
if (browserLinkClicked) return;

const links = document.querySelectorAll('a');

for (const link of links) {
const text = (link.textContent ||
'').toLowerCase().trim();
if (!text) continue;

if (textVariations.some((variant) =>
text.includes(variant))) {
link.click();
browserLinkClicked = true;
break;
}
}
}

window.addEventListener('load',
disableNewTabOpening);

const observer = new MutationObserver(() => {
disableNewTabOpening();
clickBrowserLink();
});

if (document.body) {
observer.observe(document.body, {
childList: true,
subtree: true,
});
}

clickBrowserLink();
})();