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.

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

Follow/Unfollow Projects

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

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. 

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. 

The Jump Menu

Need to quickly jump between projects and teams? 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, project, team, or your company HQ. Click or hit Enter on the selection and you’ll jump right to where you want to go.

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.

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. Choose "My Profile" and you'll see the option on the next page to choose a theme color. 

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  Campfire chat, or give someone a quick Boost.

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

On a Mac, use control + command + space bar to pull up emoji. 

In Windows 10, click the Windows key + ; to pull up the emoji picker: 

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? Customize the set up for each project by turning off the tools you don't need. 

Rename tools to describe to your team what should go there.

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:
That's a one-way ticket to the top of the page that should help you surface from a long post or comment thread. 


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