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I know you can do in:#channel to only get results from a channel, but is there a way to filter out results from a channel? A lot of our channels are spammed with automated messages and it adds noise to the search results.

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4 Answers 4

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The search feature allows you to exclude words from the result by putting a minus sign in front of a word.

Examples: 

hot -potato

will only return messages containing hot, but not potato.

To exclude a channel from the results use searchTerm -in:channelName. Do not add a # in front of the channel name.

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  • 7
    Yes I know that but apparently that rule doesn't apply to channels. E.g. foo -in:#channel does not work
    – Steven Yang
    Dec 20, 2018 at 0:39
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    works on my machine :-) yet I needed to include the # sign. May have changed recently.
    – user152468
    May 7, 2020 at 9:32
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    Interestingly, for me it only works if I don't include the #... 🤷‍♂️
    – chesterbr
    Jun 8, 2020 at 22:18
  • For me both of below filters worked, just make sure you are using correct channel name my_search_term -in:#sfdc-pusher-alerts -in:us_demo_notes
    – Halim
    Dec 17, 2020 at 3:50
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    Omitting thread comments from results with -is:thread did not seem to work for me.
    – Jose Browne
    Sep 21, 2022 at 14:16
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I found that this is possible as a global setting (which is less than convenient, but may still be useful). According to this Help Center page (Under the "Exclude channels from search" section):

  1. From your desktop, click your workspace name in the top left.
  2. Choose Preferences from the menu.
  3. Click Search. (I had to click "Advanced" under which there was a "Search Options" section)
  4. Under Don't search these channels ("Exclude these channels from search results" for me), click the box to pick channels to exclude.
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  • Looks like the article has changed since, and I can't find where the information has moved. Unfortunately, I didn't have the foresight to archive it either...
    – Chris Real
    Apr 13, 2020 at 20:55
  • It seems to work only for public channels through
    – Cyril Duchon-Doris
    Feb 3, 2021 at 16:28
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    This still works. Now under Preferences > Advanced > Exclude these channels from search results: Updated documentation link: slack.com/intl/en-ca/help/articles/…
    – Simon Woodside
    Jul 22, 2021 at 2:55
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For me both of below filters worked, just make sure you are using correct channel name

my_search_term -in:#sfdc-pusher-alerts -in:us_demo_notes

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1
  • This works. Thank you.
    – Carl Smith
    Jun 1 at 8:45
1

This is mentioned in their online help:

enter image description here

To get there, click on Learn more in Slack search box's bottom right corner: enter image description here

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