Slack Message Permalink: Format, chat.getPermalink and ts, Tested

A Slack message link has the form https://<workspace>.slack.com/archives/<channel ID>/p<ts>, where the part after p is the message's ts with the dot removed. A link to a thread reply adds ?thread_ts=<parent ts>&cid=<channel ID>. You get one from the message menu (More actions > Copy link) or from the API with chat.getPermalink. We did both on 1 October 2026 in a test workspace, for a channel message, a thread parent and a thread reply, and the two ways do not always return the same string.

The link format, decoded

These are the links Slack gave us for three messages in one channel, C0C5QDNUJ7M:

To read a link:

• • C0C5QDNUJ7M is the channel ID. How to find a Slack channel ID covers the other places it shows up.
• • p1790838372960849 is the message ts 1790838372.960849. Put the dot back after the 10th digit. The first 10 digits are a Unix time in seconds; paste them into the Slack timestamp tool to see the date.
• • thread_ts is the ts of the thread's first message, and cid repeats the channel ID.

The one difference we saw: on a thread parent, chat.getPermalink added thread_ts (equal to the parent's own ts) while Copy link did not. Both links open the same message, so do not compare permalinks as strings to decide whether two links point at the same message. Compare channel and ts.

Get a permalink with chat.getPermalink

chat.getPermalink takes channel and message_ts. Our bot token had chat:write and channels:history; Slack's method reference lists no required scope. Real responses:

{"ok": true, "permalink": "https://slack-0yr1948.slack.com/archives/C0C5QDNUJ7M/p1790838379966019", "channel": "C0C5QDNUJ7M"}
{"ok": true, "permalink": "https://slack-0yr1948.slack.com/archives/C0C5QDNUJ7M/p1790838372960849?thread_ts=1790838372.599559&cid=C0C5QDNUJ7M", "channel": "C0C5QDNUJ7M"}

The errors we got for wrong input:

So message_not_found usually means the ts is not the exact string with its dot and six decimals. If you store ts as a float, you lose digits and get this error.

Turn a permalink back into channel and ts

This is the parser, then the script we ran against the three API links:

import re
from urllib.parse import urlparse, parse_qs

def parse_permalink(url):
    u = urlparse(url)
    m = re.search(r"/archives/([A-Z0-9]+)/p(\d{16})", u.path)
    channel, digits = m.group(1), m.group(2)
    ts = digits[:10] + "." + digits[10:]
    thread_ts = parse_qs(u.query).get("thread_ts", [None])[0]
    return channel, ts, thread_ts

Fetching the message needs two different calls. A top-level message comes from conversations.history with latest set to its ts. A thread reply only comes from conversations.replies:

def fetch_message(url):
    channel, ts, thread_ts = parse_permalink(url)
    if thread_ts and thread_ts != ts:
        r = client.conversations_replies(channel=channel, ts=thread_ts, latest=ts, inclusive=True, limit=1)
        return [m for m in r["messages"] if m["ts"] == ts][0]
    r = client.conversations_history(channel=channel, latest=ts, inclusive=True, limit=1)
    return r["messages"][0]

Output with a slack_sdk bot client:

('C0C5QDNUJ7M', '1790838372.599559', '1790838372.599559')
 -> 1790838372.599559 'Permalink test: parent message'
('C0C5QDNUJ7M', '1790838372.960849', '1790838372.599559')
 -> 1790838372.960849 'Permalink test: reply in the thread'
('C0C5QDNUJ7M', '1790838379.966019', None)
 -> 1790838379.966019 'Permalink test: message with no replies'
history with the reply ts -> 1790838372.599559 'Permalink test: parent message'

The last line is the trap. We called conversations.history with the reply's ts and it returned the thread parent, with ok: true and no warning, because the channel history holds only top-level messages. If your code "fetches the wrong message" from a reply link, this is why. A reply link copied without its ?thread_ts= part has the same problem: the parser cannot tell it is a reply. Reading whole channels and threads is covered in Slack API: get messages from a channel, and posting into a thread in Slack thread_ts, tested.

FAQ

Does editing a message change its permalink?

No. The ts stays the same after an edit, so the link stays the same.

Can I get a permalink with a webhook?

No. An incoming webhook returns only ok, with no ts, so you cannot build the link. Post with chat.postMessage instead, which returns channel and ts, then call chat.getPermalink.