All About Slack Backup Tools for Exporting Data Securely

If your organization uses Slack, you need a solution that can preserve that data and make it searchable. Slack backups are an essential component of compliance adherence and legal discovery preparation, in addition to securing your valuable IP in the event of a breach or outage. This article explores best practices for archiving Slack data and the functionality you can unlock with Slack app backups from Aware.

Does Slack archive data?

Slack’s data preservation functionality depends on the Slack account you use and the retention settings you implement. By default:

Free Slack accounts

• Can view data from the past 90 days
• Can access up to 365 days of data from Slack
• Data 1+ year old is deleted and unrecoverable
• Data less than 1 year old that is revised or deleted by Slack users may be unrecoverable
• Has two retention policy options: Default or delete everything after 90 days

Slack Pro and Business+ accounts

• All messages are visible for the lifetime of the account
• All messages are retained indefinitely by default
• Edit and deletion records are available through the Slack export tool
• Can use default retention settings or set a customized retention period

Slack Enterprise Grid accounts

• Has the same basic functionality as Pro and Business+ accounts
• Can set granular, customized retention policies for individual workspaces within the Org
• Can hide messages for review before release or deletion

It should be noted that Slack’s data retention functionality is not intended to substitute a true Slack backup and archive.

Why do you need a Slack backup tool?

A Slack backup tool should have more capabilities than simply storing Slack data. While preservation alone may help a company achieve regulatory compliance—for example, the SEC requires preservation of communications data in SaaS tools, including Slack, under Rule 17a-4—that is only one reason why an organization should retain a complete record of its Slack instance.

Other reasons include:

• To support internal investigations
• To respond to legal discovery requests
• To preserve valuable IP and institutional knowledge
• To retain a record of working activity that informs change management

To be valuable to the organization, the Slack backup must be stored in a secure, search-ready archive that is easily accessible to support the functions of multiple business units.

What are the features of a Slack backup tool?

The most effective Slack backup tools connect to Enterprise Grid accounts via the Slack Discovery API to automatically ingest and archive data in real time. While Slack backups can be conducted using Slack data downloads—using the Slack self-service tool (for Business+ accounts) or manual downloads (Pro and Free accounts)—these may introduce the risk of missing data and lost context, especially for accounts that do not track message edits and deletions.

The tool should ingest data from both public and private channels, direct and group messages, including file attachments in multiple formats (e.g. PDFs, documents, images, audio, video). It should also be able to export Slack data into an accessible format such as threaded PDF or Relativity’s RSMF. This is particularly important for eDiscovery and investigations, as Slack data is exported into JSON format by default, which can be extremely complicated to read and understand.

Enterprise-grade Slack backup features may include tighter security and more granular controls, such as:

• Role-based access (RBAC) to prevent unauthorized access to Slack data sets
• Selective controls that target specific channels, DMs, and files to export
• Scalable with enterprise-volume data (the average employee sends 400+ messages per month)
• Automated data management in compliance with major legislation like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA

What is the best way to backup Slack channels and direct messages?

There are several ways that businesses can back up their Slack data. All plan tiers allow workspace owners to export Slack conversations from public channels, although there may be time restrictions placed on this capability. For example, Free plan users can only export data from the past 90 days.

All paid Org owners can export all the public channel data Slack has retained. That is all the workspace data by default, but this setting could have been overwritten by a custom retention policy that will limit the amount of available data.

In addition, Business+ and Enterprise Grid accounts can export all Slack data, including from private groups and DMs, using a self-service export tool. Enterprise Grid accounts can also connect to a third-party Slack data backup tool like Aware and automatically capture a complete record of all Slack communications.

To access private groups and direct messages, admins of Free and Pro plans must petition Slack for an export. Slack will evaluate the legal or business need of this request on a case-by-case basis before approving it.

Once the workspace owner has a Slack export, they can upload it into their chosen Slack backup tool for secure preservation. While the best practice for backing up Slack data is by connecting a real-time backup solution to an Enterprise Grid account, manual backups can help admins of lower tier accounts to also preserve their Slack data.

Is a Slack backup tool safe for sensitive data?

Slack workspaces can contain massive amounts of sensitive and confidential data, including intellectual property, regulated information, financial records, and access credentials. Leaving that data available within Slack can lead to widescale data loss in the event of a breach or hack. Equally, that data can present risks if it remains within a Slack backup that is later compromised.

One of the most effective ways of managing this data is to use a solution like Aware that can identify sensitive and confidential information in Slack for enhanced data protection. Admins should think critically about how much of that data is essential to preserve and what should be routinely purged from the Slack backup.

All Slack data should then be kept in a secure archive, ideally that is SOC 2 and ISO certified, with role-based controls and SSO to limit data access to only the most essential personnel.

Ultimately, workspace owners must balance the risk of retaining Slack data with the value it contains for the organization, and any regulatory preservation obligations they may have to meet.

How does Mimecast Aware help admins safely backup and download Slack data?

Workspace admins can use Mimecast Aware’s secure Slack backup solution by manually uploading JSON files or by connecting natively via the Discovery API to ingest a real-time record of all Slack messages, including edits and deletions. Each message is analyzed using industry-leading NLP and proprietary AI/ML models that can detect sensitive data, even when employees try to circumvent discovery by avoiding keywords and breaking up regular expressions such as credit card or government ID numbers.

Aware data backups for Slack enable a range of use cases across the enterprise by storing Slack data in an immutable, search-ready archive that puts Slack messages at the fingertips of investigators for legal, compliance, and HR purposes and displays results in their native format for more effective assessment.

• Search by keyword, channel, user and more and enhance results with AI-powered filtering
• Export to user-friendly formats, including Relativity RSMF and conversational, threaded pdf
• Strategically preserve institutional knowledge with configurable policies
• Streamline data retention workflows with granular governance and centralized ruleset
• Fulfill individuals' right to be forgotten with one-click user data removal

Request a demo to learn more about how you can effortlessly preserve your Slack data in a secure, search-ready archive from Mimecast Aware.