Legal Holds in Slack: A Complete Guide for IT Teams

When litigation or investigations loom, every organization has the same responsibility: preserve the relevant evidence. That’s what legal holds are for. But these days, the evidence you need isn’t just sitting in email archives anymore. It’s often in Slack threads, DMs, emojis, and GIFs. And when Legal needs that data, it’s usually IT who gets the request to retain and preserve it.

Slack doesn't give you tools to manage this out of the box however, making it tricky to pull defensible evidence out of it. This guide explains how legal holds work in Slack, why they matter, and how to manage them without endless headaches.

"Since launching to the public in 2013, Slack has made everyone’s work life easier and more productive. Except for legal professionals handling ediscovery."
-Everlaw

What is a legal hold?

A legal hold (sometimes called a litigation hold or preservation order) is a formal instruction to preserve data that may be relevant to a pending or anticipated legal matter.

That data can include both paper records and electronically stored information (ESI): emails, chat logs, attachments, databases, and yes — Slack conversations.

When & why legal holds are triggered

Legal holds are issued when litigation or an investigation is reasonably anticipated. Common Slack-related scenarios include:

• HR investigations: harassment or discrimination claims involving Slack DMs or private channels.
• Financial services: compliance reviews where Slack records contain client communications.
• Healthcare: instances of PHI being shared on Slack
• IP disputes: product ideas or code snippets shared in Slack threads.

Sometimes Legal drives the hold (responding to outside counsel or a regulator). Other times HR triggers it internally. In both cases, IT gets the call to preserve Slack data before anything is lost.

The legal hold process (with Slack as an example)

1. Trigger event: A demand letter arrives, or HR flags an investigation. From that point forward, the duty to preserve kicks in.
2. Identify custodians: Custodians aren’t just email inboxes anymore. In Slack, custodians may be people (employees, contractors) but also channels (project workspaces, DMs, private groups).
3. Draft and distribute the notice: Legal sends notices to custodians explaining their duty not to delete or alter information.
4. Preserve the data: Here’s where Slack gets tricky.
   • Free & Pro plans: only public channels are exportable, with a 90-day history cap on Free, making the free plan a non-starter for most organizations
   • Business+: more export options, but private messages and DMs often require Slack approval.
   • Enterprise Grid: built-in legal hold feature, with limitations: putting a hold can't prevent the deletion of entire channels, emoji reactions aren't included, and Slack Connect isn't covered
   Tools like ViewExport fill this gap — letting IT teams quickly capture and search Slack exports in a way Legal can actually use.
5. Monitor and document compliance: Custodians acknowledge holds; IT documents every action (which user accounts were put on hold, when retention settings were changed, etc, in case of later scrutiny.)
6. Release the hold: When the case or investigation closes, custodians and IT are notified that they can return to normal retention schedules.

Risks of non-compliance in Slack

Failing to preserve Slack data can lead to spoliation — loss or alteration of evidence. Courts take this seriously.

• Under FRCP Rule 37(e), sanctions may include adverse jury instructions, dismissal, or monetary penalties.
• In practice: if key Slack conversations “disappear,” your case can suffer even if the deletion was unintentional.

The bottom line: treating Slack as an informal channel won’t cut it in court.

Challenges unique to Slack (and collaboration tools)

Slack adds a layer of complexity that email and file servers never had:

• Ephemeral messages: edited or deleted threads.
• Reactions and media: emoji reactions, GIFs, and threaded replies may be contextually important.
• Retention limits: Free plan users only get 90 days of message history.
• Exports aren’t simple: IT can’t just click “Export” and hand over defensible evidence.

These challenges explain why many IT teams dread the phrase: “Can you pull this Slack data for Legal?”

Best practices for managing holds in Slack

1. Set up retention policies early – Don’t wait for litigationor a hold notice to scramble. Configure Slack retention in advance so you're ready when legal asks. Consider regular exports of Slack instances to preserve data.
2. Involve IT, Legal, and HR together – Clear communication prevents finger-pointing later. Document the steps you've taken and the standard operating procedures your team will follow, and get agreement on them.
3. Use purpose-built tools – Tools like ViewExport let you centralize exports, preserve data, and make Slack evidence searchable so you can redact and turn it over promptly.

How technology helps

Many organizations still track legal holds with spreadsheets and email reminders. That’s a recipe for missed custodians and inconsistent documentation.

Modern tools made for legal teams make the process smooth:

• Issue hold notices electronically
• Create and manage template hold notices
• Track acknowledgments automatically
• Preserve Slack data without manual CSV wrangling
• Generate reports for auditors or regulators

ViewExport on the other hand is designed specifically for parsing and searching Slack exports. Instead of IT spending weeks searching, marking, and editing JSON files, you get a searchable, export-ready workspace for compliance.

Quick Reference: Legal Hold Checklist for Slack Data

When a legal hold is triggered, here’s your Slack-specific checklist:

• Confirm trigger event and scope
• Identify relevant channels, users, and custodians
• Pause auto-deletion or retention limits
• Export relevant Slack data (public, private, DMs if approved)
• Store in a searchable, secure system (e.g., ViewExport)
• Distribute hold notices and track acknowledgments
• Monitor compliance and update as needed
• Release hold when the matter concludes

You can also make a copy of the Google Sheets version of that checklist, by clicking this link. Then, for every matter, just create a new tab and check off as you go.

Closing thought

Legal holds aren’t new — but handling them in Slack is. For IT and Legal teams, the stakes are high: preserve the evidence, or risk sanctions. With the right process and tools, you can keep Slack data defensible and avoid compliance nightmares.

Need a hand seeing if ViewExport is right for you before signing up? Let us know.

P.S. If you'd like a short version of this to save to your desktop, we have that for you: