Find external people on Slack

Slack Connect makes it possible to search for people outside your organization by email address and connect with them in Slack. Use the steps below to find external people you know and invite them to start a direct message conversation. 

Note: Anyone can set their Slack Connect discoverability preference, and owners and admins can manage discoverability for a workspace or Enterprise organization.


Search for people by email

  1. From your desktop, hover over   More.
    An image of a cursor over the More icon in the Slack desktop app.
  2. Click  External connections.
  3. Enter someone's email into the search field and press Enter
  4. Click their profile to see if they use Slack.
  5. To invite them to start a direct message, select Start a DM or Invite to Join Slack.

Note: An external person must accept your invitation before you can send each other direct messages in Slack, and they’ll only have access to your conversation.

Who can use this feature?