How to Keep Your Slack & Teams Status Active in 2026 (Without Cheating Yourself)

Slack and Teams quietly judge whether you're "here" based on input, not output. Step away to read a long document, think through a hard problem, or run a presentation, and the dot goes hollow — even though you're very much working. This guide explains how that detection works and the honest ways to keep your status accurate.

How "away" is actually decided

Both tools watch for recent input and client heartbeats:

• Microsoft Teams flips to Away after about 5 minutes with no keyboard or mouse activity.
• Slack shows Away after roughly 10 minutes of inactivity on the desktop client; it's based on client heartbeats, not whether you're "doing work."

Crucially, neither measures the value of what you're doing. Reading, watching, and thinking all register as idle. That's the gap that makes a presence tool reasonable, not deceptive.

The legitimate ways to stay active

1. Adjust the app's own settings first

Teams lets you set your status to Available and "reset" it, and both clients respect a manually set status for a while. Start here — it's free and built in.

2. Keep your machine awake

If the real problem is your screen dimming or your computer sleeping during a presentation, a "keep awake" utility (Amphetamine on macOS, Move Mouse on Windows) solves that without simulating much.

3. Use a presence tool with a real engine

When you genuinely need to step back from the keyboard while staying reachable, a presence tool generates the kind of low-level input these apps look for. The honest version of this:

• Moves the mouse along human-like paths, not in a robotic line.
• Taps safe keys that never type characters into your documents or chats.
• Yields instantly when you return — it should never fight you for the cursor.

That's how StayAway's engine is built, and it runs locally on Windows, macOS and Linux.

What to avoid

• Tools that promise to be "100% undetectable." Monitoring software is getting smarter; see Do mouse jigglers get detected? for what Hubstaff and Time Doctor actually see.
• Mechanical jigglers that move the cursor a fixed distance on a fixed timer — that pattern is the easiest thing to flag.
• Anything that types real keystrokes, which can corrupt a document or fire off a half-written message.

A note on intent

Use this to protect focus, reading and presentation time — not to misrepresent hours you didn't work. We're upfront about that because the tool is only worth using if it keeps your status accurate to how you actually work, not fraudulent.

Want presence that's honest by design? Compare your options or try StayAway free — Slack and Teams awareness are on our roadmap, with the local engine available today.