Slack import can’t find members (missing email addresses)
Roam matches the people in your Slack export to Roam members using their email addresses. If your exported Slack data doesn’t contain emails, Roam has no way to map Slack identities to Roam members, and the import can’t add anyone.
Symptoms
- Your upload fails to process, and the import is marked Failed before you can choose any channels.
- On a very small workspace, the upload may finish but channels show “No members found to import into Roam.”
Cause
The most common cause is Slack’s Email Display setting. When a workspace has email display set to No one, Slack strips email addresses out of the exported data, so the users.json file in your export has no emails at all. Roam checks for them while processing the upload and rejects an export that can’t be mapped to Roam members.
Fix
A workspace admin can make emails visible in Slack just long enough to produce a usable export:
- In Slack, go to Admin > Workspace settings > Settings & Permissions, then find Email Display and click Expand.
- Under Who can see members’ email addresses?, choose any option other than No one, then click Save.
- Export your Slack workspace data again so the new export includes emails.
- Upload the new export in Roam and continue the Slack import.
Once the export is finished, you can change Email Display back to No one if you’d prefer not to leave emails visible — it only needs to be visible at the time you generate the export.
Note: The email addresses in your Slack export should match the members’ email addresses in Roam so people are mapped correctly. If some don’t match, contact us for help before importing.
If your export already includes emails and the import still can’t find members, please contact us so we can take a look.