Support
Getting started
Add SlackXO to your workspace
Click Add to Slack and approve the requested permissions. The person who completes this step becomes the workspace's admin — everyone else who logs in afterward gets read-only access by default.
Invite the bot into your channels
SlackXO can only back up channels it's actually a member of. In each Slack channel you want archived, type /invite @SlackXO (or whatever you named the bot). Being installed workspace-wide does not automatically add it to existing channels — this is the single most common setup step people miss.
Run your first backup
From the Dashboard, click Run backup now. Once a subscription is active, backups also run automatically every day — no need to trigger them by hand going forward.
Confirm it worked
Check Recent backup runs on the Dashboard. A message count of 0 almost always means the bot hasn't been invited into any channel yet — see Troubleshooting below.
→ Searching and exporting the archive
Go to Search Archive and enter a keyword and/or date range. Results include both regular messages and thread replies. From the results page you can export everything as JSON or CSV, or click Restore on any single message to bring just that one back into a live Slack channel.
→ Placing a litigation hold
Go to Holds and add a channel ID or user ID, with an optional label for the matter or reason. Anything on hold is exempt from your retention window permanently, until the hold is removed. Only admins can add or remove holds.
→ Restoring messages to Slack
From Search Archive, either click Restore on a single message or Review & restore to Slack to select several at once. You'll need the target channel's ID, and the bot must already be a member of that channel. Every restored message is clearly labeled with its original author and date — Slack doesn't allow reposting as the original sender, so this is a reconstruction, not an exact replay of history.
→ Managing team roles
Admins can invite someone directly from the Team page by their Slack handle, picking their role up front — they just click "Add to Slack" once themselves to confirm it's them, and they land with the role already set. Existing members can be promoted or demoted between admin and viewer at any time. The last remaining admin on a workspace can't be demoted or removed — someone always needs to be able to manage the account.
→ Changing your retention window
Admins can set how many days messages are kept before they're eligible for purge from the Settings page. Anything on a litigation hold is kept regardless of this setting.
→ Choosing which channels count (Starter plan)
The Starter plan covers up to 20 channels. By default we pick the first 20 alphabetically, but you can choose exactly which ones from the Channels page — anything outside your selection keeps whatever's already archived, it just won't receive new backups until you check it or upgrade to Unlimited.
→ Managing billing
From Settings, admins can open Manage Billing to update a payment method, view past invoices, or switch plans — handled securely through Stripe's own billing portal.
→ Canceling your subscription
From Settings, click Cancel Subscription. You'll land on a page prompting you to export your data before anything happens — do this first, since it's the easiest moment to grab a full copy. Confirming cancellation requires typing your exact workspace name, so it can't happen by accident.
Your subscription ends at the close of your current billing period — you keep what you already paid for. After that, automatic backups stop, but you can still log in, search, and export normally for 90 days. If you resubscribe any time before then, nothing is lost and the countdown clears. After 90 days with no active subscription, your archived data is permanently deleted.
→ Understanding the audit trail
Every backup, search, export, hold, restore, and settings change is logged to a hash-chained audit trail, visible on the Audit Log page. Each entry is cryptographically linked to the one before it — if any entry were altered after the fact, the chain would visibly break at that point.
Troubleshooting
A channel shows 0 messages backed up
The bot almost certainly hasn't been invited into that channel. Type /invite @SlackXO directly in the channel, then run a backup again. Being installed to the workspace doesn't grant access to existing channels automatically.
I don't see Team or Settings in the menu
Those pages are admin-only. If you're logged in as a viewer, ask a workspace admin to either make the change for you or promote your account from the Team page.
A restored message doesn't look exactly like the original
That's expected. Slack doesn't allow any app to post a message as a different user or with a backdated timestamp. Every restored message is posted by the SlackXO bot with a note naming the original author and date — a clearly labeled reconstruction rather than a byte-for-byte replay.
Does SlackXO cover org-wide legal discovery?
SlackXO archives every channel and direct message the app has been added to, using Slack's standard Web API. It does not use Slack's Discovery API, so it won't capture content outside the app's membership across an entire Enterprise Grid org. If you need that level of coverage, get in touch — that's a separate, heavier integration.
Can a deleted Slack message still show up in search?
Yes, as long as SlackXO backed it up before it was deleted. Backups merge with — rather than overwrite — what's already archived, so a message removed from Slack after being captured stays in your archive and stays searchable.
Still stuck?
Email us at hello@slackxo.com and we'll help you sort it out.