Once a Slack message is deleted, you can't get it back yourself. Slack has no trash folder and no undo. The only way a deleted message comes back is if your workspace kept a copy, and only owners or admins can get to that.
How to delete a message
- Hover over your message.
- Click More actions (⋮).
- Choose Delete message and confirm.
You can only delete your own messages unless you're an owner or admin. Admins can also turn off message deleting for everyone, in which case the option won't appear.
What admins can recover
Recovery depends on two things your workspace set up before the message was deleted.
- Exports. Owners and admins can export workspace data. If an export ran before the message was deleted, the message is in that file. What an export includes (public channels only, or private channels and DMs too) depends on your plan.
- Retention settings. Paid workspaces can keep messages forever or delete them after a set period. If your workspace auto-deletes after, say, 90 days, older messages are gone for everyone.
If neither applies, the message can't be recovered. Slack support won't restore deleted messages.
Messages that disappeared without anyone deleting them
If old messages vanished on their own, check your plan. On Slack's free plan you can only see the last 90 days of history, and data older than a year is deleted. Upgrading brings back what's still stored, but not anything that was already deleted.
Saving a conversation without admin access
Slack's export tool is admin-only, so members don't have a one-click way to save a conversation. What you can do:
- Copy the text. Select the messages and paste them into a doc. Clunky, but complete.
- Save messages. Use Save for later on the messages you care about. They're bookmarked, but they still disappear if they're deleted or hit the retention limit.
- Forward messages to yourself. Use Share message to send a copy to your own DM.
- Ask an admin for an export. If you need a proper record, for legal or HR reasons for example, this is the right route.
Be careful with browser extensions that promise to export Slack. They need access to your account, and most company IT policies don't allow them.
