OffBoarding

Clean up your Slack messages before you leave. Your messages, your choice.

OffBoarding is an open-source tool that lets you bulk-delete your Slack DMs and channel messages. Built for employees who want to leave a workspace cleanly, with privacy in mind.

No data is ever stored or sent anywhere. The CLI runs entirely on your machine. The web dashboard processes everything in-memory. The code is fully open source.

Why?

Slack doesn't let you bulk-delete messages. When you leave a company, all your DMs stay behind — visible to workspace admins who can export them at any time. OffBoarding gives you a way to clean up before you go.

Two ways to use it

CLI

Install

pip install slack-offboarding

Or from source:

git clone https://github.com/ruwad-io/slack-offboarding.git
cd slack-offboarding
pip install -e .

Setup

offboarding login

This will guide you through creating a Slack App and getting your token. You'll need to:

1. Go to api.slack.com/apps and create a new app
2. Add the required OAuth scopes (the CLI tells you exactly which ones)
3. Install the app to your workspace
4. Paste the token

Your token is stored locally at ~/.config/offboarding/config with 600 permissions.

Usage

# See what you're working with
offboarding scan

# Interactive cleanup — pick conversations to clean
offboarding clean

# Clean all DMs at once
offboarding clean --all

# Simulate first (recommended)
offboarding clean --all --dry-run

# Nuclear option — wipe everything
offboarding nuke

# Check your connection
offboarding status

# Remove your saved token
offboarding logout

Commands

Web Dashboard

For a point-and-click experience, deploy the web dashboard:

git clone https://github.com/ruwad-io/slack-offboarding.git
cd slack-offboarding
pip install -e .

cp .env.example .env
# Edit .env with your Slack App credentials

python run.py

Deploy to Railway, Render, or Fly.io for HTTPS (required by Slack OAuth).

Railway (one-click)

1. Connect this repo in your Railway dashboard
2. Add environment variables: SLACK_CLIENT_ID, SLACK_CLIENT_SECRET, SLACK_SIGNING_SECRET, SECRET_KEY, APP_URL
3. Deploy — Railway detects the railway.toml automatically

API Endpoints

All POST endpoints accept { "dry_run": true } for simulation.

FAQ

Can I delete other people's messages? No. Slack's API only allows you to delete your own messages.

Will the other person know I deleted my messages? The messages will disappear from the conversation, but Slack doesn't notify them.

Does the other person still see their own messages? Yes. Only your messages are removed.

Can my workspace admin recover deleted messages? No. Once deleted via the API, messages are permanently gone.

Is this allowed by Slack's terms of service? Yes. You're using Slack's official API to delete your own messages.

How long does it take? Slack rate-limits deletions to about 50 per minute. A conversation with 1,000 messages takes about 20 minutes.

Project Structure

slack-offboarding/
├── src/
│   ├── cli.py              # Rich CLI (click + rich)
│   ├── app.py              # Flask web app
│   ├── config.py           # Configuration
│   ├── routes/
│   │   ├── auth.py         # OAuth login/callback
│   │   └── main.py         # Dashboard & API
│   └── services/
│       └── slack_cleaner.py  # Core Slack API logic
├── templates/              # HTML templates
├── static/                 # CSS & JS
├── tests/                  # Tests
├── slack-app-manifest.yml  # Slack App manifest
├── railway.toml            # Railway deployment config
├── Dockerfile              # Docker build
└── pyproject.toml          # Python project config

Contributing

PRs welcome! Please open an issue first to discuss what you'd like to change.

git clone https://github.com/ruwad-io/slack-offboarding.git
cd slack-offboarding
pip install -e ".[dev]"
pytest
ruff check src/

License

MIT — see LICENSE

Built by

Ruwad — Open source tools for a better developer experience.