Slack Channel Scraper

Scrapes 3 months of message history from Slack channels that start with external- or end with -internal. Outputs JSON.

Run

python slack_scraper.py

Setup

Slack Scraper Setup

1. Create or select a Slack app with a bot token.
2. Ensure the bot has these scopes: channels:history, channels:read, users:read.
3. Install the app to the workspace and invite the bot to the target channels.
4. Create a .env file and set:

   SLACK_BOT_TOKEN=xoxb-...
   

5. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt
   

Notes

• If you get not_in_channel, invite the bot to the channel.
• If you get missing_scope, update scopes in the Slack app and reinstall it.

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"My Week" version (1 week, all channels you're in)

The script lives in ~/Projects/slack_scraper_my_week.py. For a 1-week export of all channels you're in (to search what you did well / what didn’t go well):

cd ~/Projects
python slack_scraper_my_week.py

Setup for My Week

1. Use a user token so the script sees "channels I'm in":
   • Slack API Apps → your app → OAuth & Permissions
   • Under User Token Scopes add: channels:history, channels:read, users:read, groups:read (for private channels)
   • Reinstall the app to the workspace, then copy the OAuth Access Token (starts with xoxp-)
2. In .env add:

   SLACK_USER_TOKEN=xoxp-...
   

   (You can keep SLACK_BOT_TOKEN for the original scraper; this script uses SLACK_USER_TOKEN first.) Put a .env in ~/Projects with the token, or the script will load from ~/slack_scraper/.env if you run from there. Install deps: pip install slack-sdk python-dotenv

Output

• slack_my_week_YYYYMMDD.json – all messages from your channels; each message has "is_me": true/false
• slack_my_week_my_messages_only_YYYYMMDD.json – only messages you sent (easy to search)

Search in an editor or with grep, e.g. grep -i "did well\|went well" slack_my_week_my_messages_only_*.json