How to read Slack data exports

Once you’ve exported your workspace data, you can download a ZIP file to access message history and file links.  

Export options

Workspace Owners and Admins have two options for exporting data:

• All Slack plans: export all public channel data 
• Plus and Enterprise Grid plans: request to export all workspace data 

After your export is complete, you'll download a ZIP file with your workspace data. Depending on your export type, here's what your file will include:

	Public data	All workspace data
channels.json	✓	✓
dms.json		✓
groups.json		✓
integration_logs.json	✓	✓
mpims.json		✓
users.json	✓	✓
Folders for every channel	✓	✓

Slack messages

When you open your ZIP file, each channel will have its own folder. Each folder will contain messages from the channel, organized by date in separate JSON files. 

A typical message

Here's what a very simple message would look like:

{
    "type": "message",
    "channel": "C2147483705",
    "user": "U2147483697",
    "text": "Hello world",
    "ts": "1355517523.000005"
}

How to read a message 

Every message will include the following fields:

• "type": 
  Indicates the data is a message
• "channel":
  Which channel or direct message the message was shared to
• "user": 
  The ID of the member who sent the message
• "text": 
  The actual text of the message
• "ts": 
  The timestamp the message was posted

Note: Some messages may also include an “attachments” value. This value contains a list of objects attached to the message. 

Tip: You can translate the alphanumeric IDs for the "channel" and "user" fields by referencing the channels.json and users.json files.

How to read an edited message

Members might edit messages they've shared to a channel. If your export option allows for edit logs, an edited message will have an "edited" value with the following info:

• "user"
  The ID of the member who made the change
• "ts"
  The timestamp the message was edited

Here’s an example:

 {
    "type": "message",
    "user": "U06NKBGN8",
    "text": "test:edited",
    "edited": {
        "user": "U06NKBGN8",
        "ts": "1458672560.000000"
    },
    "ts": "1458672049.000002" 
},
{

    "type": "message",
    "message": {
        "type": "message",
        "user": "U06NKBGN8",
        "text": "test:edited",
        "edited": {
            "user": "U06NKBGN8",
            "ts": "1458672560.000000"
        },
        "ts": "1458672049.000002"
    },
    "subtype": "message_changed",
    "hidden": true,
    "channel": "C0AJZ3BT4",
    "ts": "1458672560.000003",
    "original": {
        "type": "message",
        "user": "U06NKBGN8",
        "text": "test:original",
        "ts": "1458672049.000002"
    },
    "edited_by": "U06NKBGN8
}

Message subtypes

In addition to messages that members share in Slack, there are message subtypes. These are messages posted by apps, bots, or integrations, or the messages you see when a member joins a channel. Here's a full list of message subtypes:

Type	Description
bot_message	A message was posted by an app or integration
me_message	A /me message was sent
message_changed	A message was changed
message_deleted	A message was deleted
channel_join	A member joined a channel
channel_leave	A member left a channel
channel_topic	A channel topic was updated
channel_purpose	A channel purpose was updated
channel_name	A channel was renamed
channel_archive	A channel was archived
Channel_unarchive	A channel was unarchived
group_join	A member joined a group
group_leave	A member left a group
group_topic	A group topic was updated
group_purpose	A group purpose was updated
group_name	A group was renamed
group_archive	A group was archived
group_unarchive	A group was unarchived
file_share	A file was shared into a channel
file_comment	A comment was added to a file
file_mention	A file was mentioned in a channel
pinned_item	An item was pinned in a channel
unpinned_item	An item was unpinned from a channel

Hidden subtypes

Some message subtypes have hidden properties. This means that a message may be part of a channel's history, but it's not visible to members. Message edit or deletion logs are a good example of hidden subtypes.

Below is a message deletion log. The "hidden": true, value means that this message isn't visible to members:

 {
    "type": "message",
    "subtype": "message_deleted",
    "hidden": true,
    "channel": "C024BE91L",
    "ts": "1358878755.000001",
    "deleted_ts": "1358878749.000002",
    "event_ts": "1358878755.000002"
}

Stars, pins, and reactions

Messages can have extra properties to show if anyone interacted with it.

• If you see “is_starred”: true, a member has starred the message. If no one has starred the message, you won't see this value.
• If a message has been pinned somewhere, you’ll see the IDs of the locations beside “pinned_to”.
• If “reactions” is present, it will list all reactions that have been added to the message (“name”), the number of members who reacted (“count”), and a list of members who reacted (“users”).

{
    "type": "message",
    "channel": "C2147483705",
    "user": "U2147483697",
    "text": "Hello world",
    "ts": "1355517523.000005",
    "is_starred": true,
    "pinned_to": ["C024BE7LT", ...],
    "reactions": [
        {
            "name": "astonished",
            "count": 3,
            "users": [ "U1", "U2", "U3" ]
        },
        {
            "name": "facepalm",
            "count": 1034,
            "users": [ "U1", "U2", "U3", "U4", "U5" ]
        }

Note: The "reactions" value might not list all the members that reacted to a message, but the "count" value will always show the actual number of those who did.