After your export is complete, you'll download a ZIP file with your workspace data and a series of file links that direct back to your workspace’s files. Depending on your export type, here’s what your ZIP file will include:

*If you export data from an Enterprise Grid org, this folder will be titled org_users.json

Tip: on the Enterprise Grid subscription, you can choose to export data for your entire organisation or for a specific workspace. Exports for a specific workspace include public and private channels in the selected workspace, but not multi-workspace channels.

If you chose to export data for a single user’s conversations in TXT format, you’ll download a ZIP file with all the messages and files sent by the user that you selected once your export is complete. Your ZIP file will contain three folders:

• channels
• dms
• files

Each folder will include a set of TXT files containing the history of a conversation or the files sent by a single user during your selected date range.

Note: if you apply a date range to an export, Slack will return all conversations the user has been part of, even if no messages were sent in that conversation during the dates indicated. In this situation, the channel will not show any messages in the export file.

When you open your export ZIP file, each channel or direct message will have its own folder. Each folder will contain messages from the conversation, organised by date in separate JSON files.

You’ll see reference files for different kinds of conversations: channels.json files for public channels, groups.json files for private channels and dms.json files for direct messages. These files will contain the user and channel IDs. You’ll need to use both the channel and reference files to find a specific conversation. For example, to find a specific message, you might do the following: 

Note: a folder will only be included in the export file if there are messages present for the date range that you’ve exported. For instance, if your retention policy is set to delete messages in public channels after 30 days and you selected a date range over 31 days ago, there would be no folders for public channels included in your export.

Each folder in your ZIP file will contain different data from your workspace. The channels folder will include a TXT file of each channel and group direct message that a single user has been part of. The dms folder will include a TXT file of every one-to-one direct message that a single user has been part of.

TXT files for conversations will be named after the channel, or after the usernames of members in the direct message. For example, data for your #general channel will be in general.txt. Data for a direct message might be titled something like mcollins-jjordan.txt.

To view messages from a specific conversation, you might do the following:

Once you’ve opened the TXT file, you’ll see the conversation’s message history under the Messages header. Message history will include messages sent by the single user in your export and any other users in the conversation.

Note: edited and deleted messages will only appear in your export file if your retention policy is set to keep them.

Every message will include the following fields:

• "type": 
  Indicates that the data is a message
• "user": 
  The ID of the member who sent the message
• "text": 
  The actual text of the message
• "ts": 
  The timestamp that shows when the message was posted. You can use any online unix time converter to translate the timestamp.

Messages will be logged in the date file for the date on which the message was sent. Here’s what a very simple message would look like:

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

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.

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 that you see when a member joins a channel. Here’s a full list of message subtypes:

Saved items, pinned items and reactions

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

• If you see "s_starred": true, a member has saved the message. If no one has saved 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 emoji 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.

Messages will appear in the order that they were sent in the conversation. Messages include the following:

• the timestamp (in GMT) that shows when the message was sent.
• The Slack username of the person who sent the message.
• The contents of the message.

Here’s what a simple message might look like:

[2020-04-20 13:47:27] <jjordan> Welcome to the Sales team channel! Our team is growing faster than ever

Your export file will not differentiate between messages in a thread and messages sent to a channel. All messages in a thread will appear in the flow of the conversation, mixed in with the rest of the messages.

Tip: when someone is mentioned in a message, there won’t be an @ symbol before their display name.

Members might edit messages that 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 that shows when the message was edited. You can use any online unix time converter to translate the timestamp.

These edits will be logged in the date file for the date on which the edit occurred. Here’s an example:

{
        "type": "message",
        "user": "UTXHL6F8A",
        "upload": false,
        "ts": "1590101612.000000",
        "text": "Hello, this is the message after it was edited.",
        "previous": {
            "text": "Hello, this is the original message.",
            "blocks": [
                {
                    "type": "rich_text",
                    "block_id": "Bts",
                    "elements": [
                        {
                            "type": "rich_text_section",
                            "elements": [
                                {
                                    "type": "text",
                                    "text": "Hello, this is the original message."
                                }
                            ]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        },
        "original_ts": "1590101603.000300",
        "subtype": "message_changed",
        "editor_id": "UTXHL6F8A",
        "blocks": [
            {
                "type": "rich_text",
                "block_id": "O+PJ",
                "elements": [
                    {
                        "type": "rich_text_section",
                        "elements": [
                            {
                                "type": "text",
                                "text": "Hello, this is the message after it was edited."
                            }
                        ]
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }

Edited messages will appear at the end of a conversation’s TXT file under the Message edits header. Edited messages include the following:

• The timestamp (in GMT) that shows when the message was edited.
• The username of the person who updated the message.
• The timestamp that shows when the original message was sent.
• The contents of the original message, before any edits. The edited message will appear in the Messages section in the flow of the conversation.

Here’s an example:

[2020-04-20 13:47:27] <jjordan> updated [2020-04-20 13:47:09] <jjordan> Welcome to the Sales team channel!

Members might delete messages that they’ve shared to a channel. If your retention policies allow for deletion logs, a deleted message will have a "previous" value and the following info:

• "text"
  The text of the deleted message
• "ts"
  The timestamp that shows when the message was deleted. You can use any online unix time converter to translate the timestamp.

Message deletion will be logged in the date file for the date on which the message was deleted. Here’s an example:

{
        "type": "message",
        "user": "UTXHL6F8A",
        "upload": false,
        "ts": "1590101824.000000",
        "text": "",
        "previous": {
            "text": "This is a message that has been deleted.",
            "blocks": [
                {
                    "type": "rich_text",
                    "block_id": "ABSkQ",
                    "elements": [
                        {
                            "type": "rich_text_section",
                            "elements": [
                                {
                                    "type": "text",
                                    "text": "This is a message that has been deleted."
                                }
                            ]
                        }
                    ]
                }
            ]
        },
        "original_ts": "1590101818.000600",
        "subtype": "message_deleted",
        "editor_id": "UTXHL6F8A"
    }

Deleted messages will appear at the end of a conversation’s TXT file under the Message edits header. Deleted messages include the following:

• The timestamp (in GMT) that shows when the message was deleted.
• The username of the person who deleted the message.
• The timestamp that shows when the original message was sent.
• The contents of the original message.

Here’s what a deleted message might look like:

[2020-04-20 13:47:47] <jjordan> deleted [2020-04-20 13:47:42] <jjordan> Last week, we did X in sales!

Slack export files in JSON format do not contain any files from the workspace. They include a series of file links, found in your export file’s message history JSON files, that direct back to the workspace's files. Copy these file links from the JSON file and paste them into your browser to open the files.

Here’s how to find a particular file:

Note: if you delete a file, or the channel or workspace that it was shared in, the file will no longer be accessible via the file link in your export.

The files folder of your ZIP file contains files sent by the single user selected in your export. File titles will appear in your channels and dms TXT files in the flow of a conversation, like this:

[2020-04-20 13:47:27] jjordan shared file(s) F01243S814M

Here’s how to find a particular file: