Search in Slack

Accessing the right information in Slack is key to working smarter, faster, and more productively. Search your team’s conversation history in Slack to find the relevant messages, files, channels, and people you need to get work done.

How to search in Slack

• Start a search to find relevant messages, files, channels, and people.
• Add search modifiers to locate something specific.
• Narrow your search results with filters.

Tip: Type ⌘G (Mac) or CtrlG (Windows/Linux) to start a new search, or use ⌘F (Mac) or CtrlF (Windows/Linux) from a channel or direct message (DM) to search in a specific conversation.

Start a search

Desktop

iOS

Android

1. Click  Search at the top of the desktop app to open the search window.
2. Type what you’re looking for into the search field, and add modifiers if you’d like. 
3. Click a suggested option in the list to open it in Slack, or press Enter to view your search results.

1. Tap the  magnifying glass icon in the top right corner of the app.
2. Type your search terms. You can also type search modifiers along with your query to filter your results, if you'd like. 
3. Tap Messages or Files. (You can toggle between these options when viewing your search results, too.)
4. Tap Search on your device's keyboard.

1. Tap the  magnifying glass icon in the top right corner of the app.
2. Type your search terms. You can also type search modifiers along with your query to filter your results, if you'd like. 
3. Tap Messages or Files. (You can toggle between these options when viewing your search results, too.)
4. Tap the  magnifying glass on your device's keyboard.

Add search modifiers

Search modifiers narrow the scope of what you’re looking for in Slack. Use a single modifier or combine multiple modifiers to help you find information more quickly. If you're not sure which modifiers to use, you can filter your search results later.

Search modifiers

Description	Modifiers	Examples
Search for info shared by someone	from:@display name	from:@sara
Search a specific channel or DM	in:channel name in:@display name	in:#team-marketing  in:@sara
Search for DMs sent to you	to:@your display name	to:@anna
Search a date or time frame	before:date after:date on:date during:month or year	before:4/12/2019 after:4/12/2019 on:4/12/2019 during:april
Search for a specific emoji reaction	has::emoji-code:	has::white_check_mark:
Search for something that's pinned, saved, or has a link	has:pin is:saved has:link

Tip: To search for specific dates, use MM/DD/YYYY or MM-DD-YYYY formatting in the United States, or use YYYY/MM/DD or YYYY-MM-DD if you’re outside the U.S. You can also use these keywords: yesterday, today, week, month, or year.

Filter your search results

To help you search in Slack, filter your results to find exactly what you need. Keep in mind that the desktop app offers more filtering options than the mobile apps.

Desktop

iOS

Android

When you search in Slack, the results are divided into four tabs: Messages, Files, Channels, and People. If you'd like, you can filter results once you've performed a search. You'll always have the following filter options:

• People
• Channels
• Direct messages
• Date
• Workspace (if you're a member of an Enterprise Grid organization)

Depending on the result type, you may see other filtering options specific to your results. 

Messages

See all messages in Slack that fit your search criteria.

• When you hover over a result, click View in channel to jump to the original message, or click the  link icon to copy a link to the message.
• Use the options in the right column to filter by people, channels and direct messages, date, and more.

Files

Search will scan all files you have access to in your workspace and you’ll see results that match either a file’s title or content. Click a file to open it, or hover over it for additional options.

• Click the  open icon to open the original file. 
• Click the  download icon to save it to your desktop.
• Click the  arrow icon to share it with a channel or person.
• Click the  three dots icon to view file details, copy the file's link, save it in Slack, and more.

Note: If an image of a file is uploaded to Slack, the file content cannot be indexed and it will not show up in file search results.

Channels

Search for channels by name, description, or subject (like "marketing" or "redesign project"). In addition to sorting channel search results by relevance and date, you can also sort channel results alphabetically and by member count (most to least). 

• Click a result to open the channel in Slack.
• Hover over a result to join a channel you’re not a member of or leave a channel you’ve already joined.

People

Search for people you work with by name, title, profile information, email address, and the things they discuss. Slack will only search public channels and your direct messages to find people relevant to your search terms. If you'd like, you can filter people search results by relevance or alphabetically.

• When you hover over a result, click Message to send someone a DM, or click View Profile.

Tip: You can also filter people results by account type and other profile fields. Keep in mind that Workspace Owners and Admins can choose which profile fields are available as search filters.

After performing a search, you can filter your results:

• Tap Messages or Files to narrow your results.
• Tap  Newest in the top right, then tap Most relevant or Most recent.

After performing a search, you can filter your results:

• Tap Messages or Files to narrow your results.
• Tap  Newest in the top right, then tap Most relevant or Newest messages.

Additional search tips

• After searching, you'll see a list of results that match your search terms and any close matches. For example, if you search for report, you may get results that include reports or reporting. 
• Use quotation marks to only see results for a specific word or phrase, e.g., "reports."
• Add an asterisk to a partial word to see results that begin with those specific letters, e.g., rep* may show results for reply or report. 
• Add a dash in front of a specific word to see search results without that word. e.g., design and budget -report will show results for design and budget that do not contain the word report.
• Slack may attempt to find fuzzy searches, like fixing misspelled words. Any fuzzy search results will show up in a Related Results section.