How to Save and Search Slack Message History on Free Plan

Last updated: December 13, 2024

Slack has become the go-to platform for communities and small teams, with a beautiful design and a free plan that's hard to beat. But this offering is a blessing and a curse. In this article, we'll talk about how you can keep the blessings while dodging the curse.

A blessing and a curse

Despite a new community platform propping up every month, Slack remains the default choice of communication for groups and communities. And for good reason.

Communities love it because:

• Clean interface across web, desktop and mobile (without the crypto gamer hacker vibes of Discord).
• Everyone's already on it. They are visiting it multiple times a week for work and if your community is on it, you get free engagement.
• Unlimited members for $0.

But it has one serious limitation:

• All messages older than 90 days vanish behind their paywall.
• This means no one is able to see or search through the entire archive of knowledge.
• And now they're auto-deleting all messages older than a year from their servers forever!

Nobody likes losing the collective wisdom of the community due to a company's pricing policy.

While we're on the subject, let's discuss their pricing.

Should you upgrade to Slack Pro?

LOL.

Their Pro plan costs $8.75/month per member.

For a 500-person community, that's $4,375/month or $52500/year.

Wouldn't you rather budget this money to host a monthly in-person meetup or an annual conference for your community members?

Seriously, don't give this money to Slack. Put it towards strategies that will benefit your community members. Or heck, buy yourself a nice gift because you deserve it!

Here's a hack to get around their paywall

1. Export your Slack data (it's free, thanks privacy laws!)
2. Upload it to a tool like Thread Archive
3. BAM! Searchable history without breaking the bank

All in all this entire process will take you <30 mins. How cool is this!

Here are the detailed step-by-step instructions:

1. Click your workspace name in the sidebar
2. Select Tools & settings from the menu, then click Workspace settings.
3. Click Import/export data button in the top right and follow instructions (Note that exports can only be generated once per hour)
4. Download that juicy zip file
5. Upload it to Thread Archive
6. Share the archive with everyone giving them the ability to search through the entire history!

Keeping Your Archive Up to Date

For $20 you can upgrade your workspace on Thread Archive to keep your archive updated in real time automatically. You get:

• Slack integration for automatic real-time updates
• Customization options for your archive's appearance
• Additional features to enhance your community's experience

Totally unbiased opinion - this combination of Slack + Thread Archive is the best way to run an online community. ;)

So, don't let Slack's limitations kill your community vibe. Export that data, archive it, and keep the knowledge flowing!