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Migration guide

How to migrate from Slack to Mattermost

Chat message history is the hardest thing to migrate between platforms — most teams migrate chat "going forward" and leave the old history as read-only reference.

  1. 1

    Request a data export from Slack

    On paid plans, Slack usually lets you export the full history (messages, channels, files) as an administrative export, typically in JSON format.

  2. 2

    Use Mattermost's import tool

    Tools like Mattermost or Rocket.Chat include command-line utilities to import Slack exports directly, preserving channels and threads where possible.

  3. 3

    Recreate integrations and bots

    Webhooks, bots and connected apps don't migrate — you'll need to reconfigure every integration (CI/CD, alerts, etc.) to point at Mattermost.

  4. 4

    Announce the switch with overlap

    Keep both platforms active for 1-2 weeks and pin a message in the old channels pointing to the new space, to minimize lost messages during the transition.

Before cancelling Slack

Before cancelling Slack, also download shared files separately — history exports don't always include attachments at full resolution.

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These steps are a general guideline — the exact export menu can vary depending on Slack's plan and version.