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Import data from Slack (beta)

Starting with Zulip 1.8, Zulip supports importing data from Slack, including users, channels, messages, attachments, avatars, custom emoji, and emoji reactions.

These instructions require shell access to the Zulip server. If you'd like to import a Slack organization into the hosted zulipchat.com service, contact support@zulipchat.com.

  1. Export your Slack data. You will receive a zip file slack_data.zip.

    Note: Only Slack owners and admins can export data from Slack. See Slack's guide to data exports for more information.

  2. Generate a Slack API token.

Import into a new Zulip instance

Log in to your Zulip server as the zulip user. Run the following commands, replacing <token> with the value generated above:

cd /home/zulip/deployments/current
./manage.py convert_slack_data slack_data.zip --token <token> --output converted_slack_data
./manage.py import --destroy-rebuild-database '' converted_slack_data

Warning: This will destroy all existing data in your Zulip instance.

Import into an existing Zulip instance

Log in to your Zulip server as the zulip user. Run the following commands, replacing <token> with the value generated above, and <subdomain> with the subdomain of the URL you'd like for your imported Zulip organization.

cd /home/zulip/deployments/current
./manage.py convert_slack_data slack_data.zip --token <token> --output converted_slack_data
./manage.py import --import-into-nonempty <subdomain> converted_slack_data

Logging in

Once the import completes, all your users will have accounts in your new Zulip organization, but those accounts won't have passwords yet (since for very good security reasons, passwords are not exported). Your users will need to either authenticate using something like Google auth, or start by resetting their passwords.

You can use the ./manage.py send_password_reset_email command to send password reset emails to your users. We recommend starting with sending one to yourself for testing:

./manage.py send_password_reset_email -u username@example.com

and then once you're ready, you can email them to everyone using e.g.

./manage.py send_password_reset_email -r '' --all-users

(replace '' with your subdomain if you're using one).

Caveats

  • Slack doesn't export private channels or direct messages unless you pay for Slack Plus or contact Slack support. See Slack's documentation for more details.

  • (Slack Plus import) Private channels and direct messages are currently not imported. We expect to address this in a future revision.

  • (Slack Plus import) Message edit history is currently not imported.

  • Slack doesn't export user settings or organization settings, so you'll need to configure these manually.

  • User phone numbers and custom user profile fields are not currently imported. We expect to address this in a future revision.

  • Permission hierarchy: Slack's Primary owner, owner, and admin are mapped to Zulip's Organization admin. Slack's Member, restricted, and ultra restricted are mapped to regular Zulip users. Channel creators have no special permissions in Zulip.

  • The "joined #channel_name" messages are not imported.

  • The import tool does not support simultaneous bold and italic formatting of a word; we expect to address this in a future revision.