adamcathersides / slack-autoarchive

If there has been no activity in a channel for awhile, you can automatically archive it using a cronjob.

Autoarchive Unused Slack Channels

Requirements

• python3
• Install requirements.txt ( pip install -r requirements.txt )
• An OAuth token from a Slack app on your workspace that has the following permission scopes:

Bot Token Scopes

• channels:read
• channels:manage
• channels:history
• channels:join
• chat:write
• groups:read

User Token Scopes

• channels:history

Example Usages

BOT_SLACK_TOKEN must be exposed as environment variables before running your script. By default, the script will do a DRY_RUN. To perform a non-dry run, specify DRY_RUN=false as an environment variable as well. See sample usages below.

# Run the script in dry run archive mode...This will output a list of channels that will be archived.
BOT_SLACK_TOKEN=<BOT_SLACK_TOKEN> python slack_autoarchive.py

# Run the script in active archive mode...THIS WILL ARCHIVE CHANNELS!
DRY_RUN=false BOT_SLACK_TOKEN=<BOT_SLACK_TOKEN> python slack_autoarchive.py

As an alternative to passing in environment variables through the command line, add a .env file to your project root:

BOT_SLACK_TOKEN=xoxb-
ADMIN_CHANNEL=

However, it may be best to always pass the DRY_RUN variable through the command line to avoid accidental archives.

NOTE: On the first run with DRY_RUN=false it will only add the bot to every channel - only on a subsequent run will channels be archived.

How can I exempt my channel from being archived?

You can add the string 'noarchive' to your channel purpose or topic. (There is also a whitelist file or env variable if you prefer.)

What Channels Will Be Archived

A channel will be archived by this script is it doesn't meet any of the following criteria:

• Has non-bot messages in the past 60 days.
• Is whitelisted. A channel is considered to be whitelisted if the channel name contains keywords in the WHITELIST_KEYWORDS environment variable. Multiple keywords can be provided, separated by comma.

What Happens When A Channel Is Archived By This Script

• *Don't panic! It can be unarchived by following these instructions However all previous members would be kicked out of the channel and not be automatically invited back.
• A message will be dropped into the channel saying the channel is being auto archived because of low activity
• You can always whitelist a channel if it indeed needs to be kept despite meeting the auto-archive criteria.

Custom Archive Messages

Just before a channel is archived, a message will be sent with information about the archive process. The default message is:

This channel has had no activity for %s days. It is being auto-archived. If you feel this is a mistake you can <https://get.slack.help/hc/en-us/articles/201563847-Archive-a-channel#unarchive-a-channel|unarchive this channel> to bring it back at any point.'

To provide a custom message, simply edit templates.json.

Known Issues

• Since slack doesn't have a batch API, we have to hit the api a couple times for each channel. This makes the performance of this script slow. If you have thousands of channels (which some people do), get some coffee and be patient.

Docker

• First build the docker image (in the root of the project)

docker build --tag autoarchive .

• run the container (dryrun is set to true by default)

docker run autoarchive

• if your ready to archive run

docker run -e DRY_RUN=false autoarchive

Automatic build

This has a github action configured which will automatically build and push the docker image when master is merged to.