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I use two browsers on my laptop - Brave for my personal stuff (Facebook, personal email, interesting things I want to read) and Firefox for my work browsing (work email, internal webpages, work communication). Normally I like having my default browser for the computer set to Brave (personal), since most of the time I use the laptop outside of work.

I now have the Slack desktop app to keep in better communication with folks at work. But when I click on links from there, it goes to Brave where I am not logged-in to anything work related.

Is there a way to change the browser that Slack opens without changin my system wide default browser?

I'm on a Mac, Mojave, if that helps.

thestarsatnight
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    I asked slack's support team and the answer is no. They'll pass the feedback to the product team. Hopefully we'll see this feature one day. [here's the ticket](https://i.stack.imgur.com/5ZMJD.png) – cobix Dec 08 '20 at 23:17

12 Answers12

23

I tried many options; nothing worked for me. Firfox is my default browser but slack opened links Opera. So i uninstalled Opera. Then slack opened links in Chrome.

Here is what i did that worked for me.

  • I use Kubuntu and firefox is already the default browser (verified from firefox's settings)
  • I want slack to open links in firefox
  • Open System Settings -> Applications -> Default Applications
  • Select Firefox as the default for Web Browser.

Now slack opens links in firefox.

Pragalathan M
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21

You could use Browserosaurus or Finicky or even a combination of them.

When Browserosaurus is set up as default browser, and a link is clicked, it shows a list of installed/configured browsers in which to open that link that can be selected with a one-character shortcut.

Finicky can also be setup as a default browser and it allows me to setup rules that can launch a suitable browser based upon those rules. For example: open slack.com links in Firefox, Box.com in Safari and so on.

References:

Will Stone
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localghost
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  • Finicky worked just great for me. Now I can choose in which browser the links will be open depending on the app where the link appeared. Here is my config: ``` module.exports = { defaultBrowser: "Safari", handlers: [ { match: ({ opener }) => opener.bundleId === "com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap", browser: "Firefox" } ] } ``` – Andrey Dyatlov May 06 '21 at 08:34
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    Would love a Windows equivalent of Finicky! +1 anyway. – j_random_hacker Nov 09 '21 at 22:48
  • Finicky worked really nice! Thanks for sharing!!! – Valera Tumash Dec 02 '21 at 23:12
7

Maybe this Firefox Workaround helps you:

  1. Open web link in slack
  2. In the Firefox browser instance opened by Slack write "about:profiles" in adress field
  3. Change the profile used as default to your regular profile

found on https://askubuntu.com/questions/1103461/slack-shows-opened-links-to-browser-as-another-slack-instance-in-task-bar

Schulzjo
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6

I'm looking to do the same thing, for the same reason.

Even though you can set the default browser system wide, there doesn't appear to be a way to set the default browser per app (e.g. for Slack). There also isn't a way to set a preference in Slack for which browser to launch.

The only option I've found so far is Choosy (https://www.choosyosx.com) but it costs money, though you can trial it for 40 days or so.

I'm trying it out now and works nicely so far.

Joubert Nel
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1

You can't achieve this straight forward on mac OS, but on Linux you can: Default Browser for certain application | https://askubuntu.com/a/1188672
Considering moving to the Linux world may be one option.

EDIT: Desktop entries are not part of macOS, but maybe one can mimic it by using AppleScript and booting applications from there, or writing a shellscript and booting application from the CLI.

Todoroki
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1

Default Browser for certain application

The above answer by @maxim deals with how to set default browser per app, and fortunately, it uses slack as the example.

Jithin Johnson
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0

I gave up. There's no way in Slack to specify a browser. But with the Firefox Containers extension (I have both the Facebook and Multi-account Container extensions), I can better compartamentalize how I use my tabs. So, now everything defaults to Firefox.

thestarsatnight
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0

One alternative solution is to open Slack on your favorite browser and open links directly there.

Ricardo
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I'm using Windows 10 and frustrated by this problem daily. Annoying as it is, instead of clicking on the item to open it, if you right-click you can copy the link and paste it into your work-related browser. I don't know how / if this would work on a mac though.

Pippa
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In windows 10, i solved this by doing the following:

Start > Settings > Apps > Default Apps > Web Browser -> Your browser.
Matto
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If you using Ubuntu (Linux) you can just go to about:preferences and click on "make default" button.

Example

lerox
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on mac: System Preferences -> General -> Default web browser

Aurelien
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    I'm not asking to change my default browser. I'm asking to have Slack open links in something *other* than my default browser. At that time, I had Brave as default (and personal stuff) but Slack was for work. I wanted Slack to open links in Firefox, not the default. I didn't want to change the default browser to the Mac as a whole. – thestarsatnight Dec 05 '20 at 23:00
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    yes, that's not perfect but that's a workaround that might still be useful for other people. – Aurelien Dec 07 '20 at 08:37
  • Sadly, this workaround doesn't work - Slack doesn't use the system default, at least not on MacOS. – Bill Horvath Dec 02 '21 at 17:11