This Ruby script will bulk remove all Slack files older than 30 days. Just add your API token from https://api.slack.com/web#authentication into the token quotes at the top of the file.

slack_delete.rb

require 'net/http'
require 'json'
require 'uri'

@token = ''

def list_files
  ts_to = (Time.now - 30 * 24 * 60 * 60).to_i # 30 days ago
  params = {
    token: @token,
    ts_to: ts_to,
    count: 1000
  }
  uri = URI.parse('https://slack.com/api/files.list')
  uri.query = URI.encode_www_form(params)
  response = Net::HTTP.get_response(uri)
  JSON.parse(response.body)['files']
end

def delete_files(file_ids)
  file_ids.each do |file_id|
    params = {
      token: @token,
      file: file_id
    }
    uri = URI.parse('https://slack.com/api/files.delete')
    uri.query = URI.encode_www_form(params)
    response = Net::HTTP.get_response(uri)
    p "#{file_id}: #{JSON.parse(response.body)['ok']}"
  end
end

p 'Deleting files...'
files = list_files
file_ids = files.map { |f| f['id'] }
delete_files(file_ids)
p 'Done!'

Great script, thanks

I have a trouble... When I running the script, I get a lot of messages like this
"F206K98J3: false"
All files after the script is finished remain not deleted

UPD: Resolved - you must be an admin of your workspace to delete files

Anyone modify it to download the file before deleting it? Would be useful, so you can free Slack storage but still have some stuff archived.

@MikeLund, it only seems to work with current year files, anything older remains.

this is great, thanks! I converted to nodejs to better fit my environment. check it out here https://gist.github.com/evangs/85f70573a9046990df4ff820151e0b08

If you get rate limited by slack insert a wait on line 22
sleep 1
Found I had to go all the way down to one a second to avoid getting throttled.

I was using the script and worked like a charm, however last week it starting failing and I've no idea of Ruby, maybe I've got Ruby updated or something? It throws away this error:

bulk_slack_files.rb:35:in <main>': undefined method map' for nil:NilClass (NoMethodError)

line 35 is the same as the one shown in the gist file_ids = files.map { |f| f['id'] }

Any clue? Thanks!

@nandodelauni I had the same error and it was because I was using an invalid token

thanks @luisenrike!

here's the new URL for generating Legacy workspace tokens:
https://api.slack.com/custom-integrations/legacy-tokens

Sorry, I'm not a programmer and am having problems figuring out where to run this code.

Edit: Ahh nevermind, a colleague helped me out. I had to download node.js first :-(

I just added a node gist to batch delete files older than a year
https://gist.github.com/dominikwilkowski/76d99ae84848c39e54494f4dbdd4327d

Comes with instructions too :)

An easier way is to use, no coding required.

https://delete-slack-files.com/

I get an HTML doc with little helpful error handling, that starts:

400 ERROR

The request could not be satisfied.

@ayhamg Right now that link is 404.

I just developed a bot that helps you to manage this, any contribution is welcome!
https://github.com/danibram/scrapy-slack-bot