https://github.com/hfaran/slack-export-viewer
A Slack Export archive viewer that allows you to easily view and share your Slack team's export
https://github.com/hfaran/slack-export-viewer
slack
Last synced: about 8 hours ago
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A Slack Export archive viewer that allows you to easily view and share your Slack team's export
- Host: GitHub
- URL: https://github.com/hfaran/slack-export-viewer
- Owner: hfaran
- License: mit
- Created: 2016-02-26T09:55:43.000Z (about 9 years ago)
- Default Branch: master
- Last Pushed: 2025-02-01T22:42:53.000Z (3 months ago)
- Last Synced: 2025-04-19T10:06:51.685Z (5 days ago)
- Topics: slack
- Language: Python
- Homepage: https://pypi.python.org/pypi/slack-export-viewer
- Size: 925 KB
- Stars: 1,009
- Watchers: 27
- Forks: 196
- Open Issues: 54
-
Metadata Files:
- Readme: README.md
- License: LICENSE
Awesome Lists containing this project
README
# Slack Export Viewer
[](http://badge.fury.io/py/slack-export-viewer)
A Slack Export archive viewer that allows you to easily view and share your
Slack team's export (instead of having to dive into hundreds of JSON files).
## Contents
* [Overview](#overview)
* [Installation](#installation)
* [Usage](#usage)
* [Acknowledgements](#acknowledgements)
## Overview
`slack-export-viewer` is useful for small teams on a free Slack plan (limited to 10,000 messages) who overrun their budget and ocassionally need a nice interface to refer back to previous messages. You get a web interface to easily scroll through all channels in the export without having to look at individual JSON files per channel per day.
`slack-export-viewer` can be used locally on one machine for yourself to explore an export, it can be run on a headless server (as it is a Flask web app) if you also want to serve the content to the rest of your team, or it can output HTML for deploying a static website.
## Installation
I recommend [`pipx`](https://github.com/pipxproject/pipx) for a nice
isolated install.
```bash
pipx install slack-export-viewer
```
Or just feel free to use `pip` as you like.
```bash
pip install slack-export-viewer
```
`slack-export-viewer` will be installed as an entry-point; run from anywhere.
```bash
$ slack-export-viewer --help
Usage: slack-export-viewer [OPTIONS]
Options:
-p, --port INTEGER Host port to serve your content on
Environment var: SEV_PORT (default: 5000)
-z, --archive PATH Path to your Slack export archive (.zip file or directory)
Environment var: SEV_ARCHIVE [required]
-I, --ip TEXT Host IP to serve your content on
Environment var: SEV_IP (default: localhost)
--no-browser If you do not want a browser to open automatically, set this.
Environment var: SEV_NO_BROWSER (default: false)
--channels TEXT A comma separated list of channels to parse.
Environment var: SEV_CHANNELS (default: None)
--no-sidebar Removes the sidebar.
Environment var: SEV_NO_SIDEBAR (default: false)
--no-external-references Removes all references to external
css/js/images. Environment var:
SEV_NO_EXTERNAL_REFERENCES (default: false)
--test Runs in 'test' mode, i.e., this will do an archive extract, but will not start the server, and immediately quit.
Environment var: SEV_TEST (default: false
--debug Enable debug mode
Environment var: FLASK_DEBUG (default: false)
-o, --output-dir PATH Output directory for static HTML files.
Environment var: SEV_OUTPUT_DIR (default: html_output)
--html-only If you want static HTML only, set this.
Environment var: SEV_HTML_ONLY (default: false)
--since [%Y-%m-%d] Only show messages since this date.
Environment var: SEV_SINCE (default: None)
--show-dms / --no-show-dms Show/Hide direct messages
Environment var: SEV_SHOW_DMS (default: false)
--thread-note / --no-thread-note
Add/don't add 'Thread Reply' to thread messages.
Environment var: SEV_THREAD_NOTE (default: true)
--skip-channel-member-change Hide channel join/leave messages
Environment var: SEV_SKIP_CHANNEL_MEMBER_CHANGE (default: false)
--hide-channels TEXT Comma separated list of channels to hide.
Environment var: SEV_HIDE_CHANNELS (default: None)
--help Show this message and exit.
```
## Usage
### 1) Grab your Slack team's export
#### Option 1: official Slack export
* Visit [https://my.slack.com/services/export](https://my.slack.com/services/export)
* Create an export
* Wait for it to complete
* Refresh the page and download the export (.zip file) into whatever directory
#### Option 2: slackdump
* Download slackdump from https://github.com/rusq/slackdump/
* Setup authentication as outlined in the slackdump documentation
* Run slackdump and export messages in the "Standard" format as either a directory or zip file.
* `slack-export-viewer` can also use the director without zip file.
### 2) Point `slack-export-viewer` to it
Point slack-export-viewer to the .zip file and let it do its magic
```bash
slack-export-viewer -z /path/to/export/zip
```
If everything went well, your archive will have been extracted and processed, and a browser window will have opened showing your *#general* channel from the export. Or, if the `html-only` flag was set, HTML files will be available in the `html-output` directory (or a different directory if specified).
## CLI
There is now a CLI included as well. Currently the one command you can use is clearing the cache from slack-export-viewer from your %TEMP% directory; see usage:
```bash
$ slack-export-viewer-cli --help
Usage: cli.py [OPTIONS] COMMAND [ARGS]...
Options:
--help Show this message and exit.
Commands:
clean Cleans up any temporary files (including cached output by...
export Generates a single-file printable export for an archive file or...
```
Export:
```bash
$ slack-export-viewer-cli export --help
Usage: cli.py export [OPTIONS] ARCHIVE_DIR
Generates a single-file printable export for an archive file or directory
Options:
--debug Enable debug mode
Environment var: SEV_DEBUG (default: false)
--show-dms / --no-show-dms Show/Hide direct messages"
Environment var: SEV_SHOW_DMS (default: false)
--thread-note / --no-thread-note
Add/don't add 'Thread Reply' to thread messages.
Environment var: SEV_THREAD_NOTE (default: true)
--since [%Y-%m-%d] Only show messages since the given date
Environment var: SEV_SINCE (default: None)
--skip-channel-member-change Hide channel join/leave messages
Environment var: SEV_SKIP_CHANNEL_MEMBER_CHANGE (default: false)
--template FILENAME Custom single file export template
Environment var: SEV_TEMPLATE (default: "export_single.html")
--hide-channels TEXT Comma separated list of channels to hide.
Environment var: SEV_HIDE_CHANNELS (default: None)
--help Show this message and exit.
```
An example template can be found in the repositories [`slackviewer/templates/example_template_single_export.html`](https://github.com/hfaran/slack-export-viewer/tree/master/slackviewer/templates/example_template_single_export.html) file
Clean
```bash
$ slack-export-viewer-cli clean --help
Usage: cli.py clean [OPTIONS]
Cleans up any temporary files (including cached output by slack-export-
viewer)
Options:
-w, --wet Actually performs file deletion
Environment var: SEV_CLEAN_WET (default: false)
--help Show this message and exit.
```
### Examples
Clean:
```bash
$ slack-export-viewer-cli clean
Run with -w to remove C:\Users\hamza\AppData\Local\Temp\_slackviewer
$ slack-export-viewer-cli clean -w
Removing C:\Users\hamza\AppData\Local\Temp\_slackviewer...
```
Export:
```bash
$ slack-export-viewer-cli export \
--since $(date -d "2 days ago" '+%Y-%m-%d') \
--template /tmp/example_template_single_export.html \
--show-dms \
--skip-channel-member-change \
--no-thread-note \
--hide-channels "random,alerts" \
/tmp/slack-export
Archive already extracted. Viewing from /tmp/slack-export...
Exported to slack-export.html
```
## Local Development
After installing the requirements in requirements.txt and dev-requirements.txt,
define `FLASK_APP` as `main` and select any channels desired from an export:
```bash
export FLASK_APP=main && export SEV_CHANNELS=general
```
Start a development server by running `app.py` in the root directory:
```bash
python3 app.py -z /Absolute/path/to/archive.zip --debug
```
## Acknowledgements
Credit to Pieter Levels whose [blog post](https://levels.io/slack-export-to-html/) and PHP script I used as a jumping off point for this.
### Improvements over Pieter's script
`slack-export-viewer` is similar in core functionality but adds several things on top to make it nicer to use:
* An installable application
* Automated archive extraction and retention
* A Slack-like sidebar that lets you switch channels easily
* Much more "sophisticated" rendering of messages
* A Flask server which lets you serve the archive contents as opposed to a PHP script which does static file generation