How to Use Slack Search

Slack search is powerful and tricky at the same time. One of Slack’s key advantages is the ability to look through every conversation your team has ever had.

Getting started is simple: Click the search bar. Alternatively you can use a simple keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+F on a PC orCMD+F on a Mac.

When searching for a phone number or Addressbook contact make sure to use the following syntax: from:@"phone-number". For example: from:@"(415) 943-6084"

You can refine your search by using the filters. This allows you to narrow things down by phone number, contact, channel, or date range. Here’s a quick summary:

from:@ followed by the display name for a coworker will limit your search to any user. For example, from:@Justin Pot will limit your search to only messages by me (so only the good ones).

from:me will show you only things you wrote.

in: followed by a channel name will limit your search to a specific channel. For example, in:#general will limit the search to #general.

in:@ followed by a display name for a user will show you only things in direct message conversations between you and that person.

to:me will show only messages directed at you.

before:, after:, during:, and on: all allow you to limit posts to a particular timeframe. For example, before:July will only show posts before the most recent July.

has:pin shows only pinned messages.

Use quotation marks to search for a specific phrase, for example “it’s very important that you”

Use an asterisk (*) after a partial word to see all words that include that part. For example, searching for “car*” would show all instances of car, cars, and anything else that includes the letters “car”

Use a minus sign (-) in front of a word to exclude all results that include it. This is useful for filtering out posts you know aren’t relevant.

Here is a video from Slack that gives you some tips for searching in Slack so you can spend less time looking around, and more time getting things done.