Import Slack channels, membership, and message history

Bring your public Slack channels, messages, and attachments into Roam, making it easier to continue conversations and reference past discussions in your Roam AInbox.

Export Your Data from Slack

A Slack Workspace Owner or Admin can use Slack’s export tool to generate a ZIP file containing your workspace’s data. Export options depend on your Slack plan:

1. In Slack, click Admin in the sidebar, then select Workspace settings (you can also open https://<your-workspace>.slack.com/services/export directly).
2. Click Security, then Import & export data.
3. Open the Export tab and choose the date range of history you want to include.
4. Click Start Export. Slack will email you and post a notification when the export is ready.
5. Download the ZIP file — this is the file you’ll upload to Roam.

Roam imports one Slack workspace at a time. On Enterprise Grid, export a single workspace rather than an organization-wide export.

Before you export: make sure emails are included. Roam maps the people in your Slack export to Roam members using their email addresses. If your workspace’s Email Display setting is set to No one (in Slack under Admin > Workspace settings > Settings & Permissions), Slack leaves emails out of the export and the import won’t be able to add members. If your import finds no members, see Slack import can’t find members (missing email addresses).

Import Your Slack Data into Roam

Important: User emails in Slack should match those in Roam to ensure correct mapping of messages to users. If not, please contact us.

1. In Roam, go to Settings > Roam Administration > Calendar & Integrations > Slack and upload your exported ZIP file.

2. Once the upload is complete, click View Details to see a list of channels found in your Slack archive.
3. Import channels one at a time from the list of available channels.
   • Each imported channel must have at least one member set as an Admin.
   • External guests in your Slack Channels will be added to the corresponding Roam Channels and will receive a guest badge notification email, so they can chat with you in Roam.

Additional Information

• Slack channels cannot be imported into existing Roam channels. A new channel with a unique name must be created for each imported Slack channel.
• Integrations and Slack Bots will not be carried over. Add them using the Roam API. A Roamgineer can provide expert assistance if needed.
• If a member of your Slack workspace doesn’t have a Roam account, their messages will still be imported.