Connectors
Slack connector
There is one way in on Slack, and it is the workspace app. Somebody who is allowed to install apps adds it to the workspace, and from then on you opt in to individual channels. There is no personal user-token path: if you cannot install an app on the workspace you want to read, ask the person who can. This is also the connector that goes through Slack App Directory review, and that discloses message storage to the workspace.
Scope
What the Slack connector reads
Access is granted one channel at a time. Anything outside your selection is dropped before it is stored.
It reads
- Messages in the public and private channels you explicitly opt in to, from the moment you opt in
- Thread replies under those messages, so a commitment keeps its context
- Message timestamps, channel identifiers and the display names of the people in the conversation
- Channel, author and timestamp for every message, so an item can be found again. Slack does not give the app a permalink it can store, so a Slack item carries those coordinates and the quoted text rather than a link
It does not read
- Any channel you have not opted in to
- Direct messages and group direct messages. The install asks for no DM scope at all, so they are out of reach rather than merely unread
- Files, images and call recordings
- Anything sent before you opted the channel in. There is no Slack backfill, and the reason is in the limits below
Permissions
Every permission, explained.
If a permission on this list has no reason you accept, do not grant it. Where a permission is optional, the connector says so and works without it.
- channels:history and groups:history
- Read the messages in the specific public and private channels you opt in to. Slack does not offer a narrower per-channel read scope, so opt-in is enforced on our side and channels outside your selection are dropped before storage.
- channels:read and groups:read
- List the channels in the workspace so you have something to pick from during opt-in.
- users:read
- Resolve a user identifier into a display name so the ledger says who owes what, rather than showing raw identifiers.
- chat:write
- Requested by the install so that replying in a thread can be added later without a second consent screen from every workspace. Nothing in the product posts to Slack today, and no screen offers it.
Limits
What Slack does not let this do
These come from the platform, not from the plan you are on. Paying more does not remove any of them.
- There is no Slack backfill, and this is the one limit worth reading twice. Since May 2025 Slack has capped conversation history for apps outside the App Directory at fifteen messages a minute across an entire workspace. Thirty days of one ordinary channel is over thirteen hours of continuous requests, during which nothing else could be read, so the connector does not attempt history at all. It reads from the moment you opt a channel in.
- The workspace app must pass Slack App Directory review before it can be distributed to teams. Until that review is complete, installs are limited to workspaces we onboard directly.
- Slack requires that message storage is disclosed to the workspace. The install screen states what is stored and for how long, and the workspace admin can set a shorter retention than the default.
- Slack rate limits are applied per method, not per app.
- If the app loses access to a channel, we lose it too, and nothing further is read from it. What was already stored runs out on your retention window rather than being deleted at that moment.
- Slack Connect channels with external organisations follow the same opt-in rule, but the other organisation's admin may restrict apps from reading them.
The Slack workspace app is subject to Slack App Directory review. We will not claim directory approval on this site until it is granted.
Set up Slack when the first invitations go out
Join the waitlist and pick your channels on day one. One email, no drip sequence.