What causes "Slack Free Plan Messages Disappearing After 90 Days"?

Free plan 90-day visibility limit Rolling deletion of free-workspace data older than 1 year (since Aug 26, 2024) Workspace owner set retention to delete after 90 days

How do I fix "Slack Free Plan Messages Disappearing After 90 Days"?

1. Upgrade before the one-year cutoff: Open your workspace menu > Tools & settings > Billing (owners/admins) Upgrade to Pro or higher to unlock full history Content already older than one year cannot be restored 2. Export what you can see now: Workspace owners/admins: Tools & settings > Workspace settings > Import/Export Data > Export Download the export and store it outside Slack 3. Check the retention setting: Owners: Workspace settings > Settings & permissions > Message & file retention Choose to keep messages for one year instead of deleting after 90 days 4. Move important decisions out of chat: Save key files to Google Drive/OneDrive and link them Write decisions into a doc or wiki rather than relying on Slack history

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Slack Free Plan Messages Disappearing After 90 Days

Ongoing All Updated October 21, 2026

Quick answer

This is a plan limit, not a bug: free workspaces can only see and search the last 90 days of messages and files, and since August 26, 2024 data older than one year is permanently deleted. Upgrading reveals hidden content that is still under a year old.

Most likely fix: Upgrade before the one-year cutoff.

Symptoms

Old messages and files vanish from channels and search, a banner says older history is hidden, or files from last year are gone.

Why it happens

Free plan 90-day visibility limit
Rolling deletion of free-workspace data older than 1 year (since Aug 26, 2024)
Workspace owner set retention to delete after 90 days

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

1. Upgrade before the one-year cutoff
1. Open your workspace menu > Tools & settings > Billing (owners/admins)
2. Upgrade to Pro or higher to unlock full history
3. Content already older than one year cannot be restored
2. Export what you can see now
1. Workspace owners/admins: Tools & settings > Workspace settings > Import/Export Data > Export
2. Download the export and store it outside Slack
3. Check the retention setting
1. Owners: Workspace settings > Settings & permissions > Message & file retention
2. Choose to keep messages for one year instead of deleting after 90 days
4. Move important decisions out of chat
1. Save key files to Google Drive/OneDrive and link them
2. Write decisions into a doc or wiki rather than relying on Slack history

This guide also covers

slack free plan messages disappearing
slack 90 days messages
slack deleting old messages
slack free plan history limit
slack messages older than 90 days

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