How to find and preserve your Slack records
Find, count and save your company's Slack messages before you close the workspace. What you can see and export depends on your Slack plan.
- Who can do this
- Workspace Owner or Admin for public channel exports. The Workspace Primary Owner (or the Org Owner on Enterprise) for full exports that include private channels and DMs.
- Last verified
- October 21, 2026 against Slack’s official documentation
Where your Slack history lives
All your Slack messages and files sit in Slack's cloud, inside your workspace. Your plan decides how much of it you can see and export.
- Sign in to the Slack desktop app as a Workspace Owner. On an Enterprise plan, sign in as an Org Owner.
- Check your plan: click Admin in the sidebar → Manage billing → Overview tab.
- Make a list of your channels. Mark which ones are public and which are private. Private channels and DMs need a special export.
- List any Slack Connect channels you share with other companies. Files sent by people outside your company are not in your export.
- Note which channels hold key files, like bids, drawings or contracts. Slack exports list files as links, not the files themselves.
How to measure how much you have
Slack's analytics dashboard shows how many messages and files your team has created. Use it to size your archive before you export.
- On desktop, click Admin in the sidebar → Workspace analytics. On Enterprise, click your org name → Tools & settings → Workspace analytics.
- On the Overview tab, change the date range in the top-right corner to the longest range offered.
- Read Messages sent and Files uploaded. Messages sent leaves out bot and app messages.
- On paid plans, open the Channels tab to see Messages posted for each channel. Click Export CSV to save the list.
- Go back to the Overview tab and click Export to save a copy of the summary.
Free plans show only the Overview tab. On Pro and Business+, the Channels tab covers public channels only.
How far back your history goes
On paid plans, Slack keeps everything unless someone changed the retention setting. On the Free plan, older history is hidden and then deleted.
- Free plan: you can only view and search messages and files from the last 90 days.
- Free plan: since August 26, 2024, Slack may delete messages and files older than one year on a rolling basis. Deleted data cannot be recovered.
- Paid plans (Pro, Business+ and Enterprise): by default, Slack keeps data for the life of the workspace.
- Check your setting: Admin → Workspace settings → next to Data retention, click Expand. A custom timeline means older messages may already be gone.
- Pro plan exports depend on when you upgraded from Free. Data deleted before the upgrade does not come back.
Deleting a channel removes its messages for good, no matter what your retention setting says.
How to save a copy
Run the export yourself, or have an authorized admin do it for you. Keep the finished file under your own control.
- First, stop any loss. Leave retention set to keep everything, and do not delete channels or downgrade the plan yet.
- Open Admin → Workspace settings → Security → Import & export data → Export tab.
- Choose a range from the Export date range menu and start the export. Public channel exports work on every plan.
- On Business+, the Primary Owner can request an export of all channels and conversations, including private channels and DMs. The owner must confirm the export is allowed by law and by company policy.
- On Enterprise, the Org Owner asks Slack Support to turn on the self-serve export tools. Then go to your org name → Tools & settings → Organization settings → Security → Exports.
- Slack emails you when the export is ready. Download the ZIP file. Save it to a secure drive you control, and keep a second backup copy.
- Save important files by hand while the workspace is still open. Export file links stop working once the file, channel or workspace is deleted.
What exports leave out
A Slack export is mostly text. Know the gaps before you shut anything down.
- Standard exports include messages and links to files. They do not include the files themselves.
- Free and Pro exports cover public channels only. Private channels and DMs need an application, and Slack approves it only for valid legal process, member consent, or a legal requirement or right.
- Free workspaces export file links only from the last 90 days, and nothing older than one year.
- In Slack Connect channels, only links to files shared by your own members are included.
- Exports are JSON files. Messages show user and channel ID codes, which you match to names using users.json and channels.json.
- If you downgrade from a paid plan to Free, the Free plan limits apply again. Export before you downgrade or cancel.
Never send the export ZIP, file links or admin logins to anyone outside your company. Keep the copy yourself.
Official sources
- Export your workspace data
- Guide to Slack import and export tools
- How to read Slack data exports
- Usage limits for free workspaces
- View your Slack analytics dashboard
- Understand the data in your Slack analytics dashboard
- Customize data retention in Slack
- Change or cancel your paid Slack plan
Vendors change menus and plan limits often. Check the official pages above before you delete anything. This guide is general information, not legal advice.
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