This article is written for: ✅ Zello Work ❌ Zello Friends & Family.
The scheduled off-duty / silence-messages feature in the Zello mobile apps is not available on Dispatch Hub, and there is no work-schedule automation on desktop. When you need to step away, take a phone call, or focus without incoming messages playing out loud, Dispatch Hub gives you two manual controls: set your status to Busy or mute specific channels.
Set your status to Busy
Setting yourself to Busy stops all incoming messages from playing out loud. Nothing is lost. Messages are saved to your history and marked as unheard so you can catch up when you return.
- Open the status menu:
- Windows: top-left corner of the app.
- Mac: top-right corner of the app.
- Select Busy.
Your status indicator turns orange, and other users see you as Busy.
While you are Busy:
- Incoming messages do not play out loud. They collect in your channels and contacts with an unheard-message badge, and you can play them back from history at any time.
- If a message is already playing when you switch to Busy, it stops.
- Emergency alerts still come through, so you will not miss a critical alert.
- Busy is a manual setting. It does not turn itself on or off on a schedule, and it resets to Available when you sign out and back in.
To start receiving live messages again, open the status menu and select Available.
Mute a specific channel
If only one channel is too noisy, you can mute it individually instead of changing your overall status.
- Right-click the channel in your channel list, or open the channel's settings, then select Mute.
A mute indicator appears on the channel. Muted channels stop playing audio, but you still receive their messages into history for later playback. To turn audio back on, repeat the steps and select Unmute.