Slack - Show fullname of user instead of username

slack-api

Solution

For the application side

Yes there is. In the window for slack, at the bottom left by your username, there is an up arrow. Click on that and you will see a preferences option.

Once you are in Preferences, Click on Message Display. Within this option, you will find "Display real names instead of usernames". Make sure this is checked and click on done.

For the API Side

Since this is tagged Slack-api and I'm not sure if this is what you are talking about, within the response of the API from the users.list method, it will return the First/Last name, so you would just have to use it in whatever you are doing. Reference the Docs for the Slack API

{
"ok": true,
"members": [
    {
        "id": "U023BECGF",
        "name": "bobby",
        "deleted": false,
        "color": "9f69e7",
        "profile": {
            "first_name": "Bobby",
            "last_name": "Tables",
            "real_name": "Bobby Tables",
            "email": "bobby@slack.com",
            "skype": "my-skype-name",
            "phone": "+1 (123) 456 7890",
            "image_24": "https:\/\/...",
            "image_32": "https:\/\/...",
            "image_48": "https:\/\/...",
            "image_72": "https:\/\/...",
            "image_192": "https:\/\/..."
        },
        "is_admin": true,
        "is_owner": true,
        "has_2fa": false,
        "has_files": true
    },
    ...
]

}

Problem

Is there a way that in slack, we can show fullname of a user in the channel user list, instead of just the username? Since we have multiple teams and not all the people are familiar with usernames that users pick from different teams, its really difficult to identify who is who unless one goes to their profile or checks their fullname manually. So, is there a way to display the full usernames for users in the list instead of just the usernames?

Original source