Basecamp Pro Tips

Wanna be a Basecamp power user? Hone your skills with these pro tips, tricks, and shortcuts to get the most out of Basecamp!

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Work with To-dos in Bulk

If you have a few to-dos that all need to be assigned, grouped, deleted, or archived, use the bulk tool to make that happen quickly and easily.

Click the menu icon (three horizontal lines) next to one of the to-dos you want to add bulk actions to:

Screenshot of a to-do list with an arrow pointing at the three horizontal lines next to a to-do

Press Command + Shift (Mac) or Control + Shift (Windows) and then click all the to-dos you want to bulk assign, archive, delete, or group:

Screenshot of the to-do list with three to-dos selected and the context menu open. You can assign, archive, delete, move/copy, or group to-dos in bulk

Change your participation type

Are you part of a project that you don't need notifications from? If you choose to "just follow" the project, you’ll still have full access to it but notifications will be muted. You won’t hear from the project unless someone specifically @mentions you or assigns you a to-do.

Click into the project, then on the ••• menu to the right of the project name. Choose the option to " Switch to just following."

Screenshot of the project page with the dropdown menu open and the "Switch to just following" option highlighted.

Subscribe or Unsubscribe to a Comment Thread

Did you see a conversation happening that you want to get notifications for? Click "Subscribe me" to subscribe yourself to that thread:

Screenshot of the comments section with an arrow pointing at the "Subscribe me" button

Included in a conversation and don't need the comment updates? Click the "Unsubscribe me" button at the bottom of the page to remove yourself from that thread:

Screenshot of the comments section with an arrow pointing at the "Unsubscribe me" button

The Jump Menu

Need to quickly jump between projects or people? The jump menu is great for that!

It’s as easy as hitting Command-J (Mac) or Ctrl-J (Windows). The jump menu will pop up and you can start typing to narrow down on the person or project (you can search for projects by their description). Click or hit Enter on the selection and you’ll jump right to where you want to go:

GIF demonstrating how you can use the Jump menu to quickly jump between projects and people in Basecamp

You can search for your projects by their description or title. You can also simply type "my" to jump to your assignments, bookmarks, drafts, and recent activity.

Keyboard Shortcuts

You can easily navigate Basecamp using the QWERTY keyboard shortcuts. For Mac users, use Command, while Windows and Linux users should use Ctrl.

  • Jump menu: "Command ⌘" + "J" or "Ctrl" + "J"
  • My Stuff: "Command ⌘" + ";" or "Ctrl" + ";"
  • Find/Search: "Command ⌘" + "/" or "Ctrl" + "/"
  • Emoji: "Command ⌘" + "Ctrl" + "Space" or "⊞ Win" + "." (period)
  • Home: "Command ⌘" + "Shift" + "H" or "Ctrl" + "Shift" + "H"
  • Latest Activity: "Command ⌘" + "Shift" + "A" or "Ctrl" + "Shift" + "A"
When you're writing a comment or composing a message board post, you can use these text editor shortcuts: https://github.com/basecamp/trix/wiki/Keyboard-Shortcuts
These are the most common shortcuts from that page: 
  • Bold: "Command ⌘" + "B" or "Ctrl" + "B"
  • Italic: "Command ⌘" + "I" or "Ctrl" + "I"
  • Link: "Command ⌘" + "K" or "Ctrl" + "K"
  • Undo: "Command ⌘" + "Z" or "Ctrl" + "Z"
  • Redo: "Command ⌘" + "Shift" + "Z" or "Ctrl" + "Shift" + "Z"

There are two more keyboard shortcuts that are specific to the Basecamp Desktop App:

  • Go Back: "Command ⌘" + "[" or "Ctrl" + "["
  • Go Forward: "Command ⌘" + "]" or "Ctrl" + "]"

Viewing the Heystack page

If you need to access and view your Hey! notifications often, you can open the Heystack page in a separate tab:

GIF showing how to open the Heystack page in a new tab (right-click the Hey! menu button at the top and select "Open link in a new tab")

This page contains every Hey! notification you’ve ever received from Basecamp. You can even bookmark it in your browser for your convenience!

Dismissed a new feature announcement and can't find it now? Don't worry! You can always find the recent announcements from Basecamp by adding /bulletins/ to your account URL and pressing Enter:

You will end up on the Basecamp announcements page where you can find all the latest features and goodies from the Basecamp team:

Focus Mode

Need to spend some time focused on your work? With Focus mode, notifications and orange unread badges are turned off. They'll automatically turn back on tomorrow:

Screenshot showing how to enable "Focus mode" in two steps: 1) Click the profile picture in the upper right corner 2) Click the "Turn on Focus mode" in the menu that opens

Choose a Theme

Want to add a splash of color or tone things down a bit? Pick your own color theme!

Click your profile photo/avatar first. Then, choose "Appearance", and you'll see the option on the next page to choose a theme color:

Screenshot showing how to change a color there in three steps: 1) Click the profile picture in the upper right corner 2) Click the "Appearance" option in the menu that opens, and 3) Choose a color theme on the Appearance page

Use Emoji

You can add emoji anywhere you can enter text in Basecamp. You might use them to visually group similar projects, designate priority in a to-do list, jazz up a Chat, or give someone a quick Boost.

Here's a to-do list with emojis showing what's priority and what can wait:

Screenshot of the to-do list demonstrating how you can use emoji in the names of the individual to-dos indicating their priority

On a Mac, use "Command ⌘" + "Ctrl" + "Space" to pull up emoji:

GIF showing how to use emoji in the Boost field in Basecamp on a Mac

In Windows 10 or 11, click the "⊞ Win" + "." (period) to pull up the emoji picker:

GIF showing how to use emoji in the Basecamp editor on a Windows PC

In Windows 8, look for the keyboard icon in the Windows taskbar in the lower right corner. If you don't have the keyboard set up, here's how.

If you're using Windows 7, you'll see emoji in black-and-white only (how avante garde!). Here's the update you'll need to use emoji. 

Choose and Rename Project Tools

Only using a few of the tools in a project? Need to set up a link to an external service? You can! Customize the tools setup for each project by turning off the tools you don't need:

GIF demonstrating how you can disable and enable Project Tools, and rearrange them in your project

Account owners and administrators can also set default names for project tools in Adminland:

Screenshot of the Rename project tools page in Adminland

If a project is already created, you can still rename the tools on the Set up tools page:

Screenshot of the Project tools page with the "Rename" button highlighted for every tool

Or you can rename a tool right from the tool page if needed:

Screenshot of the Message Board tool with an overflow menu open and the arrow pointing at the "Rename this tool" option

A screenshot of the Message Board tool with the rename popup that allows you to give the Message Board a different name

In addition to that, you can open a Door to other services right in your Basecamp projects! 🚪 A Door is a simple, direct link to any outside services you use like Github, Slack, Zoom, etc.:

Screenshot of the Open a Door page with a list of available services: Adobe Creative Cloud, Airtable, Basecamp, Box, Calendly, Customer.io, Dropbox, Figma, GitHub, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google Sheets, Google Slides, Help Scout, HubSpot, iCloud Drive, Invision, Jira, Microsoft Teams, Miro, Notion, OneDrive, Salesforce, Sketch, Slack, Trello, Xero, Zendesk, Zoho, Zoom, and External Service.


To add a Door to your project, click into that project, then the ••• menu at the top right of the page, then click the "Set up tools" option. Choose an existing external service or link to any site using the "External service" option. Learn the ins and outs of Doors here!

Now that you've finished this guide, make sure to check out the Working in Projects guide as well as the Working with Clients guide. They're great resources for after you've set things up!

Back To Top

When you're scrolling through a page in Basecamp, you might see a button that appears on the lower-left side of the page:

Screenshot of the bottom of the page in Basecamp with an arrow pointing at the "Back to Top" button in the lower left cornerThat's a one-way ticket to the top of the page that should help you surface from a long post or comment thread. 

Switching between Basecamp accounts

Browser

As long as you use the same exact email address to access each Basecamp account, you can navigate between them in your browser.* You can see all of the accounts you're a part of here: https://launchpad.37signals.com/signin

Access the Launchpad or your other accounts from within Basecamp 4 by clicking on the Basecamp logo on the left hand side of the page:

Screenshot with arrows pointing to the Basecamp logo and associated Basecamp 4 accounts

If you don't use the same email address across all of your Basecamp accounts and you would like to, please reach out to the support team! We'd be happy to get this sorted out for you. ✨

Apps

If you use the desktop app or mobile app for Basecamp 4 accounts, you can only navigate between other Basecamp 4 accounts. It's not possible to access a Basecamp 2 account from the same Basecamp app, but you can download the Basecamp 2 mobile app here.

In the desktop app for Mac, click the Account menu then choose the account you're looking for. You can even opt to use a keyboard shortcut like ⌘1 to navigate to other accounts even more quickly:

Screenshot of the Basecamp app on a Mac demonstrating how to switch between accounts in the app (click Account at the top and select the account from the list

📱 Instructions for switching between Basecamp 4 accounts on the iPhone and iPad are here.

🤖 Instructions for switching between Basecamp 4 accounts on an Android are here.

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