Slack Saved for Later: Where It Is and Who Can See It

Saved messages in Slack are in the Later tab. On desktop, click Later in the left navigation bar. To save a message, hover over it and click the bookmark icon (Save for later), or press A with the message in focus. Saving is private: when we saved a test message in a channel and read the same channel as a second member, nothing about the save showed up. Later replaced stars and the old Saved items list in 2023, according to Slack's developer changelog, and it keeps message reminders in the same place.

We tested every claim below in a Slack workspace on 4 October: we saved messages in a DM and a channel, set a reminder, completed, archived and deleted them, and read the results through Slack's own API.

Where is Saved for later in Slack?

In Later, the bookmark icon in the left navigation bar of the desktop and web app. It has three tabs:

• • In progress: everything you saved and have not finished. The number next to it counts these.
• • Archived: items you moved out of the way without finishing them.
• • Completed: items you marked done.

If Later is not in your navigation bar, look under More; you can pin it back in Preferences, Navigation. On mobile, Later sits at the top of Home.

Can others see what I save for later?

No. We saved a message in a public test channel, then read that channel twice with Slack's conversations.history method:

Who read the channel	What the message looked like
The person who saved it	The message plus a saved block: state: in_progress, todo_state: saved
A second member of the channel (a bot user)	The same message with no saved block, no reaction, no pin, no reply count

The save is stored against your account, not on the message. The sender gets no notification, and nothing changes in the channel. Pins are the shared version: everyone in the channel sees them in its Pins tab; our pin tests are in Slack pinned messages.

How to save a message and what each action does

You want to	Desktop	Mobile
Save a message	Hover, bookmark icon, or press A	Tap and hold, Save for later
See saved items	Later in the navigation bar	Later at the top of Home
Add a reminder	Hover the item in Later, clock icon (Edit reminder)	Tap the item and reschedule
Finish an item	Hover, checkmark (Mark complete)	Complete
Put it aside without finishing	Hover, three dots, Archive	Not tested
Remove it	Hover, three dots, Remove from Later	Tap and hold, Remove from Later
Search saved items	Add is:saved to a search	Same



What a Later reminder does

We set a reminder 2 minutes out on a saved message. The item showed Due in 2 minutes, then Due in < 1 minute. When it came due, a Reminder card appeared in Activity with the message text and a Mark Complete button. No Slackbot DM arrived. Clicking Mark Complete on that card moved the item from In progress to Completed in Later.



For reminders that are not tied to a saved message, see Slack /remind command examples and Slack remind me about this message.

What happens to a saved message after it is deleted?

It stays in Later as a grey row that says This message was deleted, and it still counts toward the In progress number. The text is gone; Later keeps no copy. The row stays until you remove it with Remove from Later. In our test, the deleted message also dropped out of is:saved search results.

How to find saved messages in Slack

• Open Later and switch between In progress, Archived and Completed.

• Search with is:saved, for example invoice is:saved. In our test the search returned completed and archived items too, so a finished item is still searchable. Every search modifier is in Slack search operators.

How to clear all Saved for later items

We found no bulk button in Later. Each item has its own Mark complete, Archive and Remove from Later. Completing or archiving clears the In progress list; only Remove from Later takes the item out of Later and out of is:saved search.

Later vs stars, pins, bookmarks and lists

Slack's developer changelog from July 2023 says Save it for Later replaced Saved Items, also known as stars, and Reminders, and that there are no public APIs for it. stars.list no longer reflects what users see in Later. If an old script saved items for you, they stopped showing up.

• Later is private to you.

• Pins are visible to everyone in the channel, up to 100 per channel.

• Bookmarks are links shared with the whole channel, kept at the top of it; see Slack bookmarks.

• Lists track shared tasks with owners and due dates; see Slack canvas vs lists.

For a message you want to send at a set time, use scheduled send instead; see how to schedule a recurring message.

FAQ

What is the shortcut to save a message in Slack?

Press A with the message in focus. More in the Slack keyboard shortcuts cheat sheet.

Is there an API for Slack Later?

No public one. Slack's changelog says so, and the old stars API no longer matches Later. The web app uses internal saved.* methods; when we called saved.list with a bot token, Slack answered not_allowed_token_type.

Does Slack tell someone when you save their message?

No. In our test the message looked the same to other members after the save, and no notification is sent.