Slack Archiver

Export and archive your Slack workspace conversation history as structured JSON.

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Slack Archiver is a lightweight command-line tool that downloads the full conversation history for one or more workspace users. It handles public channels, private channels, direct messages, and group DMs — including thread replies and file attachments — and saves everything as organized JSON files you can search, back up, or process offline.

Why Slack Archiver?

• Complete archives — messages, threads, and file attachments — not just channel lists
• Multi-user support — archive data for multiple users in a single run
• Rate-limit aware — built-in delays and automatic retries keep things smooth
• Zero config UI — just provide tokens and run
• Structured JSON output — easy to query, index, or feed into other tools

Prerequisites

• Node.js v18 or later
• A Slack User OAuth Token with the required scopes (see Setup)

Setup

1. Install

git clone https://github.com/dinosaurchi/slack-archiver.git
cd slack-archiver
npm install

2. Create a Slack App

1. Go to api.slack.com/apps and create a new app.

2. Navigate to OAuth & Permissions and add the following User Token Scopes:

   Scope	Purpose
   conversations:read	List channels and read message history
   conversations.members	Check channel membership
   files:read	Read and download file attachments

3. Install the app in your workspace and copy the User OAuth Token (starts with xoxp-).

3. Configure tokens

Create .secrets/user-tokens.json in the project root:

[
  {
    "name": "Jane Doe",
    "token": "xoxp-..."
  },
  {
    "name": "John Smith",
    "token": "xoxp-..."
  }
]

• token — required. A Slack User OAuth Token.
• name — optional. Used for display and output directory naming.

Note: .secrets/ is already included in .gitignore so tokens are never committed.

Usage

npm start

Or with Make:

make archive-history

The tool authenticates with each token, discovers all conversations the user belongs to, and downloads the full message history for each one.

Output

Archived data is written to data/, organized by workspace and user:

data/
└── acme_corp-T12345678/
    └── jane_doe-U87654321/
        ├── _summary.json
        ├── general-C10000001.json
        ├── engineering-private-C10000002.json
        ├── dm-D10000003.json
        └── group-mpim-C10000004.json

Attachments

File attachments are downloaded and stored alongside the conversation JSON:

data/
└── acme_corp-T12345678/
    └── jane_doe-U87654321/
        ├── attachments/
        │   ├── general-C10000001/
        │   │   ├── F12345_screenshot.png
        │   │   └── F12346_report.pdf
        │   └── engineering-private-C10000002/
        │       └── F12347_architecture.svg
        ├── _summary.json
        └── general-C10000001.json

Each file is named <file_id>_<sanitized_filename> and stored in a folder per conversation. Downloaded attachment paths are recorded in the local_path field of each message's attachment metadata.

Summary file

Each user directory contains a _summary.json:

{
  "workspace_id": "T12345678",
  "workspace_name": "Acme Corp",
  "user_id": "U87654321",
  "user_name": "Jane Doe",
  "download_date": "2026-05-05T12:00:00.000Z",
  "total_conversations": 42
}

Conversation files

Each conversation is saved as a separate JSON file with the following structure:

Field	Type	Description
id	string	Channel or conversation ID
name	string | null	Channel name (empty for DMs)
type	string	public_channel, private_channel, dm, or mpim
created	number	Unix timestamp of channel creation
topic	string | null	Channel topic
message_count	number	Total number of messages downloaded
messages	array	Full message history with enriched threads, file metadata, and downloaded attachments

Rate Limiting

Slack Archiver respects Slack's API rate limits:

• 1.5-second delay between consecutive API calls
• Automatic retry (up to 3 attempts) with exponential backoff on failure
• retry_after compliance — pauses when Slack signals a rate limit
• 0.5-second delay between consecutive file downloads

Contributing

Contributions are welcome! To get started:

1. Fork the repository
2. Create a feature branch: git checkout -b my-feature
3. Commit your changes: git commit -m "Add my feature"
4. Push to the branch: git push origin my-feature
5. Open a Pull Request

Please make sure your changes are consistent with the existing code style.

License

This project is licensed under the MIT License.