How to Check How Much Data You Have in Slack

To check how much data your company has in Slack, open Workspace analytics from the Admin menu. It shows how many messages people send, how many files they upload, and when each channel was created. Those numbers, plus your Slack plan, tell you how big and how deep your Slack history is.

You never need to read a message to do this. Analytics show counts, not content.

Why the size and age of your Slack history matter

Volume and years of history are two of the four things that set the price of a dataset; the other two are data type and current demand (how pricing works). Five years of busy project and support channels is a much deeper record than six months of light use.

For Slack, that comes down to three questions: how active (messages and files per month), how far back (the age of your channels and messages), and how much you can actually reach (your plan’s history limit).

Step 1: Check your plan first

Your plan decides how much history exists at all. On the free plan, Slack limits you to the most recent 90 days of messages and files and deletes data more than one year old. Upgrading reveals messages and files beyond the 90-day limit that haven’t been deleted yet.

If you’ve been on a paid plan (Pro, Business+ or Enterprise) for years, your history is likely intact. If you’ve been on the free plan, your usable history may be much shorter than your company’s age.

Step 2: Open Workspace analytics

Analytics are available on all plans, with more detail on paid plans.

• Free, Pro and Business+: on desktop, click Admin in the sidebar, then Workspace analytics.
• Enterprise, for the whole organization: click your organization name in the sidebar, then Tools & settings > Organization settings > Analytics.

Any member can see the Overview tab by default. The Channels and Members tabs are for workspace owners, admins and members they give permission to.

Step 3: Read messages and files on the Overview tab

The Overview tab defaults to the Last 28 days and includes (Slack):

• Messages sent and Files uploaded across the workspace
• Monthly active members, Daily active people and people posting
• Where messages are sent: the split between public channels, private channels and direct messages

Write down messages sent and files uploaded for the period, plus the public, private and DM split. That split matters because some exports only cover public channels (see below).

Select Export to save the figures.

Step 4: Use the Channels tab to see how far back you go

The Channels tab lists every channel with its Created date, Messages posted, Total membership and Last active date. Select Export CSV to download it.

Sort by Created to find your oldest channels still in use. Then sort by Messages posted to see which channels hold most of the activity. Support, engineering and project channels with years of history usually make up the core of a Slack dataset.

On Pro and Business+, the Channels tab covers public channels only. Private channel analytics need an Enterprise plan.

Step 5: Spot-check old messages with search

Analytics show recent windows, not all-time totals. To confirm older messages still exist, use Slack’s date search modifiers:

• during:2021 finds messages from that year
• before:2020-01-01 and after:2019-06-01 set exact dates
• in:#channel-name limits the search to one channel

Search for a common word in your business, such as “customer” or “deploy”, with during: and an older year. If results come back, that year’s history is there. Work back until results stop.

Put the numbers together

Slack doesn’t show a single all-time message count, but the numbers above add up to a clear picture:

Measure	Where to find it
Slack plan, and whether it was ever free	Your billing settings
Messages sent and files uploaded, last 28 days	Workspace analytics > Overview
Split between public channels, private channels and DMs	Overview > Where messages are sent
Number of channels, and messages per channel	Channels tab, exported
Year of your oldest channels and messages	Channels tab (Created) and during: search
Monthly active members	Overview

A hypothetical note like “paid plan since 2018, about 40,000 messages a month, 70% in public channels, 300 channels, 85 active members” tells a reviewer far more than a storage figure would.

About exports

You don’t need an export to take an inventory. If your company later decides to sell, an export is how the data leaves Slack, so it helps to know the limits (Slack):

• On Free and Pro, owners and admins can export messages and file links from public channels only. Free workspaces export file links from the last 90 days only.
• On Business+, owners can apply to export private channels and DMs as well.
• Enterprise adds exports filtered by conversation type, member or workspace.

An export is a full copy of your messages. Keep it inside the company until you’ve decided what, if anything, to share.

What to leave out at this stage

Counting is not sharing. When a company does decide to sell, it chooses which channels and date ranges to include, and people’s names and contact details are de-identified before any buyer sees the data. Direct messages and private channels raise extra questions about employee communications; our rights check covers what to review, and you should confirm anything you’re unsure about with counsel.

Next steps

• Using Microsoft instead? See how to check how much data you have in Microsoft Teams.
• Count your documents in Google Drive or OneDrive and SharePoint.
• List every business tool your company uses with Take inventory, then request an estimate.