The decision was made by Slack to begin deleting services that were available to free users due to the company’s recent rapid growth. Soon, Slack will place several functions behind a paywall, making it impossible for users to utilize them without a subscription.
The free lifetime message history will be the first to expire for free customers in August. Over the weekend, Slack revealed that it will start removing files and conversations older than a year from free workspaces on a rolling basis beginning of August 26.
Slack says that in order to preserve the quality of the app for its users, it has modified subscription plans and feature sets. However, due to the rapid growth of its user base over time, Slack is no longer able to offer some resource-intensive services to its free users.
Once your free workspace expires, Slack will no longer retain files and messages. Anything older than a year will be erased if you are a non-paying user and maintain your files stored on Slack’s database.
Customers can see their entire message and file history for the last 90 days if they choose not to pay for a subscription; if they opt to upgrade to a premium membership, they will be able to access the remaining 275 days.
When customers eventually upgrade, they will be able to retain all of their history along with their messages and files for the duration they have selected.
Note that you will need to switch to a paid subscription by August 26 in order to keep your message and file history. Your only other choice if you’d prefer go with freemium would be to export the files you’ve stored, which you can accomplish using Slack’s free edition.
There are three membership categories available for Slack at the moment: Pro ($8.75), Business+ ($15), and Enterprise Grid (price varies). Customers can view their entire message history across all three subscription tiers.