Message retention

Retention controls how long messages stay in your organization's channels, DMs, and groups before they are permanently removed. The deletion is real: when a message is swept, both the message row and any attached files are gone with no recovery window.

Org-level default

In your workspace settings, find Default Message Retention. Choose one of: Keep forever (the default), 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days, 90 days, or 1 year.

This setting applies only to channels created after you save the change. Existing channels are not retroactively updated. Silently shortening retention on existing conversations would cause an unexpected mass-deletion, so the default only shapes channels going forward. Set it before you create the channels it should govern.

DMs and groups inherit the same default at creation time when there is an org context.

Per-channel overrides

Channel admins can set a different retention window in the channel settings dialog. The same set of values is available. A few important behaviors:

• Setting a shorter window than the org default takes effect immediately. Messages older than the new window are removed on the next scheduled sweep.
• Setting a longer window also takes effect immediately, but it cannot recover anything already removed under a prior shorter window.
• Setting "Keep forever" disables retention for that channel entirely.

When retention is active, the channel header shows a banner noting that messages auto-delete after the configured window and that pinned messages are exempt, so members are informed.

DM mutual-consent retention

Direct messages between two people have no single admin, so each participant proposes a window. The shortest non-null proposal governs the conversation. If you propose 7 days and the other person proposes 30 days, the effective window is 7 days. If only one of you proposes a window, that proposal wins. If neither participant proposes anything, the DM keeps messages forever.

To set or change your proposal, open the DM settings dialog (the cog in the DM header). You will see the current effective window, the other participant's proposal if one exists, and a picker for your own.

To return a DM to keep-forever, both participants must withdraw their proposals. This is intentional: the privacy-conservative party always wins, and one person cannot unilaterally lengthen a window the other wanted shortened.

Group chats with three or more participants are not governed by mutual consent. A group's admin sets a single retention window directly from the group's settings, the same way a channel admin does.

What gets deleted and what does not

• Regular messages older than the retention window: permanently removed.
• Attachments (file uploads and images): removed at the same time as the message.
• Pinned messages: exempt. Retention skips pinned messages regardless of age. If you need something to survive, pin it.
• The channel itself: unaffected. Only messages within the channel are subject to retention.
• The channel's encryption key: unaffected. The key remains active for future messages.

There is no trash or soft-delete recovery window. Once a message is swept, the content is gone.

Why retention matters

Long-lived chat history is a liability. Most messages have a useful life of hours to days; keeping them indefinitely means your org accumulates subpoena-attractive data that no longer serves any purpose. A deliberate per-channel retention window turns indefinite exposure into bounded exposure: short windows for sensitive planning channels, longer windows or keep-forever for institutional knowledge.

Retention deletion is also the strongest defense against historical compelled disclosure. Even though OrganizeOS can be compelled to decrypt messages it holds, it cannot produce messages it no longer has. A short retention window on sensitive channels means that by the time any external demand arrives, the relevant history may already be gone. See message encryption and security posture for how encryption and retention work together.