Python script to bulk invite all users in a slack team to a specific channel. While there are a number of ways to do this with small teams (see below), this script uses the official Slack Python client and latest features for pagination ensuring that one user to tens of thousands of users can easily be bulk invited to a channel.
Updated to use the new Conversations API and the official Python slackclient now that slacker has been archived and no longer supported.
Basic usage:
- Python 3.x is required.
- Install the python-slackclient
library via
pip ⚠️ Legacy Slack API tokens have been deprecated. Create a Slack App for your workspace.- Add an App OAuth token for the app you just create. More details on this can be found at Create and regenerate API tokens.
- Set the OAuth Scope using just the
User Token Scope. These are the minimum scope permisisons required for this script:
| Permission | Description |
|---|---|
| channels:read | View basic information about public channels in the workspace |
| channels:write | Manage the user’s public channels and create new ones on the user’s behalf |
| groups:read | View basic information about the user’s private channels |
| users:read | View people in the workspace |
- Install or reinstall the app once the OAuth scope has been defined or updated.
- ⛔ Using a file for the token has been deprecated. Use the
--tokenoption or set or pass the OAuth token as an environment variable to the script. - Execute the script, passing the name of the channel where all users will be invited, such as:
./slack-bulkinviter.py --token MyOAuthToken --channel mychannelor by passing the OAuth token as an environemnt variable:
env SLACK_API_TOKEN=my-slack-app-oauth-token ./slack-bulkinviter.py --channel mychannel- Sit back and let it do its work. Large workspaces can take a long time to process.
Using the
--verboseoption is recommended in workspaces with more than 1000 users or channels.
| Option | Descriptions |
|---|---|
--help |
Help on using the script. |
--channel |
The channel to add the user to. Required. |
--token |
The Slack OAuth Token (string) for the user app required for the workspace. Required if the $SLACK_API_TOKEN environment variable is not set. |
--tokenenv |
The environment variable name that contains the Slack OAuth API Token. default: SLACK_API_TOKEN |
--bots |
Include bot users in the channel. Excluded by default. |
--apps |
Include apps in the channel. Excluded by default. |
--sleep |
Number of seconds to sleep between pagination calls. Default is as low as is reasaonable. default: 2 seconds |
--split |
List split divisor used to chunk large lists into smaller chunks. This is required if the invite list exceeds 1000 users. If the invite list is greater than 10,0000 use --split to increase the divisor until Users = Total Invited Users / Split is less than 1000. Defaults to 10 which is good for up to 10,000 invites. |
--verbose |
Output more info about what is happening. Useful for workspaces with large number of conversations or users. |
As of today using the UI option for a channel "add people to" + option allows
pasting over 2000 email addresses. This option either didn't exist or wouldn't
allow more than 100 people in the past. it may be likely that there is no limit
on this but it's been tested by me for just under 3000 email addresses.
The /who command in a channel will return the first 99 users. For small
organizations this may be sufficient. Type /who in the most populated channel,
usually #general then copy the list of users and use as the input to /invite
in the channel you want to invite everyone.
Add Channel Tools to your workspace. Depends on the users from one channel that is used as the basis for the invites for the target channel.
See StackExchange has some solutions as well. Make sure to read all of the comments.
Docker instructions courtesy of @markshust (modified slightly to use the env variable for the OAuth token).
Create a new directory named "slack-bulkinviter", then once in that directory, copied the raw file there:
mkdir slack-bulkinviter && cd $_
curl -O https://raw.githubusercontent.com/robby-dermody/slack-bulkinviter/master/slack-bulkinviter.pyCreate a file named Dockerfile with the following contents:
FROM python:3.8.2-buster
RUN pip install --no-cache-dir slacker
COPY slack-bulkinviter.py .
Build the docker image with:
docker build -t slack-bulkinviter .
At this point you should be all set, and can run the script like so:
docker run --env SLACK_API_TOKEN=my-own-slack-oath-token -it --rm \
slack-bulkinviter python slack-bulkinviter.py --channel your-channel