Article

How to export Slack data, and what it holds

By TrustPast

Updated October 22, 2026

A company of 30 people runs half its day in Slack. The dispatch, the approvals, the questions to the person who knows. Years of that is a record of how the work got done. Here is what to count before you apply, why you don’t export anything to apply, and, for after an agreement, how Slack’s own export works and what the file holds.

Version note. Checked against Slack’s help pages for the Free, Pro, Business+ and Enterprise plans on 22 October 2026. Menus change. If a step differs, Slack’s help page wins.

Count what you have; you do not export to apply

Start with what micro1 publishes about the order of things. Its process has four steps. Get started, which micro1 describes as a simple assessment to find the right partnership for the company. Evaluation: “Our team reviews your submission to determine whether your company is a fit.” Discovery: more information and a call “to discuss your data and privacy requirements.” Partnership: “If approved, we’ll finalize the agreement and data requirements and begin the partnership.”

So the data requirements are set at the last step, after approval. micro1 does not publish how records are delivered once a partnership begins. We won’t guess at it. What this page can tell you is how Slack’s export works, so you know what exists and who can produce it when the time comes.

Before then, you count. micro1’s own estimate asks two things about the record: “How many employees does your company have?” and “How many years of data do you have?” For Slack, that comes down to a short list:

how many years the workspace goes back, and whether there was an older workspace before it;
how many people have posted in it, now and at peak;
how many channels carry work: dispatch, projects, support, sales, operations;
which plan the workspace is on, because the plan decides what can be exported later.

None of that needs an export. It needs ten minutes in the admin pages and one honest look at the channel list.

Apply & License Your Data

Where Slack shows how much you have

Slack has an analytics dashboard. Slack’s help page says: “From your desktop, click Admin in the sidebar. Select Workspace analytics from the menu.” On the Free plan you get “a high-level view of your workspace activity from the Overview tab.” On Pro and Business+, you can also “Use the Channels and Members tabs to see more detailed insights.”

Slack says that “By default, only Workspace Owners and Admins can see member analytics.” On Enterprise plans, “Private channel analytics are only available on Enterprise plans to owners and admins with permission to manage private channels.”

Here is what to write down, as our own advice:

The date of the oldest message in the busiest work channel. Scroll to the top, or search the channel with the oldest date you can think of. That is your years of history.
The number of channels with work in them. Leave out the social ones. Keep the dispatch, project, client and support channels.
The number of members who posted. The Members tab on paid plans shows activity by person.
Your plan name. It sits in the admin pages under billing.

That is the count. Worth two minutes to see your range? Our estimate asks five questions, one of them how many people work at the company.

Who can export, and what the plan allows

Slack is plain about this. Its help page lists the export options plan by plan.

Every plan. Slack lists “Export messages and file links from public channels” as available on Free, Pro, Business+ and Enterprise. It says: “Workspace Owners and Admins can export messages and file links from public channels in JSON format.”

Free. Slack adds two limits. On file links: “Workspaces on the Free plan can only export links to files from the last 90 days.” On age: “Data more than a year old will not be included.” For a company that has been on Free for six years, the standard export gives a small slice of the record.

Pro. Public channels, in JSON, with one note on shared channels: “only links to files shared by members of your workspace will be included in your export.”

Private channels and DMs on Free and Pro. Slack says Workspace Owners “may contact Slack and apply to export data from all channels and conversations, including private channels and direct messages.” It then says: “We will reject applications unless Workspace Owners show in each instance (a) valid legal process, or (b) consent of members, or (c) a requirement or right under applicable laws in order to export data.”

Business+. Slack says: “For legal and regulatory compliance, Workspace Owners can apply to access a self-serve data export tool for messages and file links from public channels, private channels, and DMs in JSON format.” It also says that “Each Workspace Owner must ensure that (a) appropriate employment agreements and corporate policies have been implemented, and (b) all use of data exports is permitted under applicable law.” Applications “require approval from the Workspace Primary Owner.”

Enterprise. Slack says: “Org Owners can contact our Support team to request access to self-serve data export tools,” which “must be separately requested.” Nothing beyond public channels is self-serve without that request. The custom export lets them “Choose which data to export by conversation type, member, or for a specific workspace, in either JSON or TXT format.” Slack also notes: “Data exports from Enterprise orgs cannot be imported to other workspaces.”

Who can use the feature. Slack’s page lists “Org Owners / Admins (Enterprise plans), Workspace Owners (Free, Pro, and Business+ plans), and members with the Export Admin system role.”

Retention. One more line matters for a company that set Slack to delete old messages: “The content available for export may be limited depending on your plan and data retention settings.” If your workspace deletes messages after a year, the years are gone from Slack. Count only what is still there.

The steps, in Slack’s words

These are the steps for a public-channel export on the Free, Pro and Business+ plans, from Slack’s export page. They are for after an agreement with micro1 says what is in scope. Each step names its source.

“From your desktop, click Admin in the sidebar.” Source: Slack, Export your workspace data.

Step 2: Open the security settings

“Select Workspace settings from the menu, then click Security.” Source: Slack, Export your workspace data.

Step 3: Open import and export

“Click Import & export data.” Source: Slack, Export your workspace data.

Step 4: Open the export tab

“Click the Export tab.” Source: Slack, Export your workspace data.

Step 5: Choose the date range

“Below Export date range, click the drop-down menu to select an option.” On Business+, Slack adds a choice first: “Depending on your export type, choose what it will include.” Pick the range the agreement covers, not the whole workspace by default. Source: Slack, Export your workspace data.

Step 6: Start the export

“Click Start Export. We’ll send you an email once your export file is ready.” Source: Slack, Export your workspace data.

Step 7: Download the file

“Open the email and click Visit your workspace’s export page.” Then: “Click Ready for download to access the ZIP file.” Source: Slack, Export your workspace data.

On Business+, the same path also offers the channel audit report. Slack says Workspace Owners can “request to export a CSV list of channels and their details for migration planning or other workspace management needs.” On Enterprise, the path starts at the organisation name, then Tools & settings and Organization settings, then Security and Exports, as Slack’s page sets out.

What the file contains

Slack’s guide to reading exports says you “download a ZIP file with your workspace data and a series of file links that direct back to your workspace’s files.” What is inside depends on the export type. For a public-channel export, Slack lists:

channels.json, the list of public channels;
integration_logs.json, the app activity logs;
users.json, the members;
a folder for every public channel;
canvases.json, a URL for every canvas shared in public channels.

An export of all channels and conversations adds groups.json for private channels, dms.json for direct messages, mpims.json for group direct messages, and a folder for every private channel and direct message.

Inside each folder, Slack says, messages are “organized by date in separate JSON files.” One file per day, per channel. As our own description, a ten-year dispatch channel is a folder of a few thousand small files.

What is missing matters as much. Slack says: “Data exports will include links to files, but not the files themselves.” The photos, PDFs and spreadsheets posted in channels stay in Slack. The export points at them. Slack also says: “Edited and deleted messages will only appear in your export file if your retention policy is set to keep them.” Anything a retention setting has already removed is not there at all.

Check the export

Five checks, as our own advice, before anything goes anywhere:

Open channels.json and count the channels. Does it match the work channels you listed when you counted?
Open the busiest channel’s folder. Is the oldest daily file from the year you expected?
Open users.json and count the members. Does it roughly match your headcount over the years?
Spot-check one day you remember. A storm, a big job, a launch. Are the messages there?
Look for the channels you agreed to leave out. If one is in the file, the export scope was wrong. Run it again.

The personal data in a Slack export

A Slack export is full of people. That is the point of it, and also the part to handle with care.

Here is what Slack’s own description of the file tells you it holds. users.json is the member list, with each person’s ID matched to their profile. Every message carries the ID of the person who wrote it and a timestamp. A direct-message export, if one is ever approved, holds conversations between two people that neither expected anyone else to read.

Then there is what people typed into the messages, as our own description: customers’ names and phone numbers pasted in for the crew, addresses, the occasional card number someone should never have posted, sick days, pay questions, and family news.

micro1 publishes how it handles this. It says: “Personally identifiable information (PII) is removed when relevant, access is restricted to a limited number of authorized team members, and customer data is processed through isolated pipelines that prevent it from being commingled with other engagements.” It also says that “companies have the opportunity to review representative samples before use.” And before any participation, micro1 says the company and micro1 together define the “Approved data scope and clear boundaries” and the “Anonymization and redaction requirements.”

So the scrubbing is agreed with micro1, not done alone in a spreadsheet the night before. Your job is to know where the personal parts sit, so the scope can leave them out.

A law firm’s note on licensing company data raises three points worth reading before the discovery call. It says employee communications about pay, scheduling and working conditions “may be protected concerted activity.” It says “Companies must comply with the privacy statements in effect when the data was collected.” And it says email and chat contain “other companies’ confidential information, often covered by NDAs and commercial agreements.” The same note says Slack’s API terms bar third-party app makers from using data drawn through the API to train AI models. Ask counsel which export route the agreement should use.

What is never included

Start with what micro1 publishes. Its partnership page says every partnership comes “with clear controls over what is shared, how it is handled, and what is never included.” The list is settled with each company before any participation.

Now our own advice, which is ours and not micro1’s:

Direct messages. Leave them out of the count. Slack itself treats them as a separate application, with conditions. Raise them only if counsel says the company can.
HR and personal channels. The channel where people swap shifts, the one for the holiday party, the one where a manager talks to one report. None of it is how the work was done.
Shared channels with other companies. A channel shared with a supplier or a client holds their words too. Their contract decides, not yours.
Anything a client owns under contract. A client’s drawings or documents posted in a channel are the client’s. Only the contract says which is which.
Health information about anyone. A customer who needed a quiet visit. A colleague who was off for surgery.
Payment details. A card number in a channel should not be there at all. Flag it so it stays out.
Privileged mail and messages. Threads with the company’s lawyers. The same law firm’s note says a sale “may waive privilege over legal communications”; ask micro1 and counsel before you count any.

What is licensed is set out in the agreement micro1 finalises at the partnership step. We can only tell you what is usually in and usually out.

What this means for a company of thirty people

Here is what a company of 30 to 150 usually keeps in Slack, as our own description and not a list from any buyer.

A software company keeps the engineering channels: the design debate before a feature, the incident thread at two in the morning, the post-mortem a week later. A services firm keeps the client channels: the scope question, the change request, the approval. An operations or logistics company keeps the dispatch and exceptions channels: the shipment that went wrong, who fixed it, and the change to the procedure that followed. A trade company with an office team keeps the dispatch board, the crew questions and the photos from site.

In each case, the question micro1’s estimate asks is the one that matters: how many years, and how many people. The chat archives page goes through which parts of a Slack history show how the work was done. The email archives page covers the other half of the record, where the same decisions went out to customers. The page for companies with 30 or more staff explains why 30 is micro1’s published line, and the programme page for 30 or more people sets out how the band works. If your chat lives in Microsoft Teams, the Microsoft 365 guide covers how Microsoft exports Teams messages.

If the company has closed

A closed company’s Slack often still exists, on a plan nobody pays for any more. That changes what the export can reach. On Free, Slack says data more than a year old is not included, and file links cover only the last 90 days. If your workspace fell back to Free when the card stopped, ask micro1 on the discovery call before you assume the history can come out. The page for closed companies covers the rest of a closed company’s record.

Where we fit

We, TrustPast, explain the process and give you a range with our estimate. It is ours, not an offer. You apply to micro1 yourself, through the button below. micro1 pays us a referral fee. You pay us nothing. We never see your Slack, your export, or your files. How the de-identification works, in plain words, is on how it’s safe. Why buyers want records like these at all, and what they leave out, is on what data buyers actually want from a trade business.

Before you apply

Four things to settle first, as our own advice:

Count. Years, members, work channels, plan. Write the four numbers down.
Don’t export. Nothing in micro1’s published process asks for a file before the partnership step.
Read the handbook. Find what staff were told about the company’s Slack when they joined. Counsel will ask.
List what stays out. DMs, HR channels, shared channels, client material. A short list now makes the scope conversation quick.

Then answer the five questions. If the range is worth your time, apply.

TrustPast

Questions and answers

Do we have to export our Slack to apply to micro1?

No. micro1’s published process starts with a short assessment and a review of your submission. The data requirements are finalised at the partnership step, after micro1 has approved the company. micro1 does not publish how records are delivered, so nothing on this page is a step you take before an agreement.

Who in the company can run a Slack export?

Slack says Workspace Owners and Admins can export messages and file links from public channels on every plan. Org Owners and Admins on Enterprise plans, and members with the Export Admin system role, can also use the export tools. Private channels and direct messages need an application on Free, Pro and Business+.

Can we export private channels and direct messages?

Only on request, on every plan. On Free and Pro, Workspace Owners contact Slack and apply. On Business+, Workspace Owners apply for a self-serve export tool. On Enterprise, Slack says Org Owners can apply to access self-serve export tools, which must be separately requested. On Free and Pro, Slack says it will reject applications unless the Workspace Owners show valid legal process, consent of members, or a requirement or right under applicable laws. As our own advice, leave DMs out of the count until counsel and micro1 have agreed the scope.

Why does our export have links instead of files?

Slack says data exports include links to files, not the files themselves. On the Free plan, Slack says only links to files from the last 90 days are exported. Count the files in Slack before you count them in the record.

We are on the Free plan. How far back does the export go?

Slack says that on the Free plan, data more than a year old will not be included in an export. If the workspace has been on Free for years, the older history may not come out through the standard export. Ask micro1 on the discovery call whether that history matters for the scope.

Do we remove names before we hand anything over?

No. micro1 says personally identifiable information is removed when relevant, and that the anonymisation and redaction requirements are defined together before any participation. You count the record. You don’t scrub it.

What does it cost us?

Nothing. micro1 pays us a referral fee. You pay us nothing, and you apply to micro1 yourself.