Slack Channels – How to Move #general to Another Channel

slack

I've set up a slack organization for a small team.

In the beginning we had only a single project we were working on, so we just used the #general channel for the primary communication.

Now the team has grown bigger, and we have three separate projects. So the #general channel has been renamed to #project-name. However, since it was originally #general, new users are automatically added to it and can't be removed.

We would like to keep the discussion about the original project between the people working on it. The old messages regarding the original project shouldn't be visible by default for new team members either.

Is it possible to move all the old messages to a new channel and restore #general? Or how should we manage this situation?

Best Answer

Set default channels for new members from the official help:

  • Click your team name to open the Team Menu.
  • Select Team settings.
  • Click expand under the Default Channels section.

But you might still not able to change it:

  • Note: Note that all team members belong to #general and it cannot be removed from the list of default channels.

While it's not supported to rename the channel and move messages there is an import and export feature.

A possible work around would be to restore the original #general name and export the history of that channel. After that you create a new channel with the project name and import the history form #general into that new channel. This way you would have the project oriented messages in the project channel. What's left to do is to clean up the old messages in #general. You can delete old messages using the archives (FAQ: Edit or delete messages ).

Related Topic