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:

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: 

1. Open the users.json file and search for the users in question. Make a note of their IDs. 
2. Next, open the channels.json, groups.json or dms.json file and search for the conversation that includes those two IDs in the members section. Make a note of the channel name or conversation ID for that conversation. 
3. In the main export folder, find the folder titled with that channel name or conversation ID. You’ll find multiple JSON files in that folder – one for each date that messages were sent.

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 select a date range over 31 days ago, there will be no folders for public channels included in your export.

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 – 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

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

• 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 number of times that the reaction was used.

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."
                            }
                        ]
                    }
                ]
            }
        ]
    }

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"
    }

• "flagger_user_id"
  The ID of the user who flagged the message.
• "content_user_id"
  The ID of the user who wrote the flagged message.
• "date_created"
  The time stamp when the message was flagged.
• "comments"
  Any comments left by reviewers, including details like time stamps, who left the comment and whether the comment was deleted.
• "flagged_message"
  The details of the flagged message including message content, profile information of the message author and review status.

Here’s an example:

[
{
    "flag": {
        "id": "Fg016WC7RU9Z",
        "flagger_team_id": "E019B299WNQ",
        "flagger_user_id": "UTXHL6F8A",
        "content_user_id": "U014QD5SE67",
        "content_team_id": "T019B299WNQ",
        "date_created": 1727216082
    },
    "comments": [],
    "flagged_message": {
        "subtype": "moderated",
        "text": "This is the content of a message that was flagged for review",
        "user": "U014QD5SE67",
        "hidden": false,
        "type": "message",
        "ts": "1727216072.664659",
        "client_msg_id": "eba94731-3cf1-4005-90fa-49e0930fc9b3"
    }
}
]

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. To open the files, copy the file links from the JSON file and paste them into your browser.

Here’s how to find a particular file:

1. Open the folder for the conversation that the file was shared in.
2. Locate the JSON file that corresponds to the date on which the file was shared.
3. You’ll see the file link in the message details where it was shared, in the "files:" section.

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.

Slack export files in JSON format will include a specific file that contains links to download all available canvases in HTML.

Canvases

Here's how to find a canvas:

1. Open canvases.json and search for the title of a canvas.
2. Locate the url_private_download in the details that correspond to your canvas.
3. Paste this URL in a browser to download the canvas and read its contents.

  {
    "id": "F05UA7XQXHS",
    "created": 1695846651,
    "name": "This_canvas_is_shared_in_General",
    "title": "This canvas is shared in General",
    "mimetype": "application/vnd.slack-docs",
    "filetype": "quip",
    "pretty_type": "Canvas",
    "user": "U018Y4QJK0E",
    "editable": true,
    "size": 48,
    "mode": "quip",
    "is_public": true,
    "is_tombstoned": false,
    "public_url_shared": false,
    "date_delete": 0,
    "url_private_download": "https://files.slack.com/files-pri/T019B299WNQ-F05UA7XQXHS/download/canvas?t=xoxe-1317077336772-EXAMPLE-TOKEN-INFO",
    "shares": [
      {
        "team": "T019B299WNQ",
        "channel": "C019UMH0P40"
      }

Note: You can download canvas version history from the url_private_download URL if your workspace or organisation has data exports for all conversations enabled.

Comments on canvases

Comments on a canvas will be exported to their own folders in your export file. Here's how to associate the comments in an export file to their canvases:

1. Open file_conversations.json and search for the title of a canvas.
2. In the "name": field, take note of the FC ID or the canvas that you’d like to view comments for (ex. FC:F05UA7XQXHS).
3. Return to your export and locate the folder with a matching FC ID.
4. Open the FC folder to view comments made on the canvas. Comments will be sorted by the date that they were made

{
    "id": "C05UA7XQXHS",
    "name": "FC:F05UA7XQXHS:This canvas is shared in General",
    "created": 1695846691,
    "creator": "USLACKBOT",
    "is_archived": false,
    "members": [
        "U018Y4QJK0E"
    ],
    "topic": {
        "value": "",
        "creator": "",
        "last_set": 0
    },
    "purpose": {
        "value": "",
        "creator": "",
        "last_set": 0
    }