Slack Pinned Messages: Where Pins Are Now, and the 100-Pin Limit

To see pinned messages in Slack, open the channel and click Pins in the row of tabs under the channel name, next to Messages and Add canvas. The tab shows up once the channel has at least one pin. To pin a message, hover over it, click the three dots (More actions) and choose Pin to channel. We tested pins in a one-person test workspace on 30 September 2026, in Slack for web, and pinned messages through the API until Slack refused one.

How to pin a message and find it again

• Hover over the message and click More actions (the three dots on the right).
• Choose Pin to channel. With the menu open, pressing P does the same.
• The message gets a yellow background and a "Pinned by you" label in the channel, and appears in the channel's Pins tab.

To unpin, open the same menu. On a pinned message the item reads Un-pin from channel, still on the P key:

Across all channels, type has:pin in the search bar. Add a channel to narrow it: in:#release has:pin. While our script was still pinning, has:pin in that channel found 49 messages when 72 were already pinned, because new pins take a moment to reach the search index. After the run, the same search found all 100.

What we tested, and what happened

So a pinned message never needs re-pinning after an edit. If a pin vanishes, check whether someone deleted the message, which takes the pin with it, or unpinned it.

Slack pin limit: 100 per channel

We posted 110 messages to a new channel with a bot and pinned each one right after posting it. Pins 1 to 100 succeeded; the 101st returned:

{"ok": false, "error": "too_many_pins"}

pins.list then reported 100 items. To pin something new in a full channel, unpin an old message first.

Pinning from a script ran into the rate limit three times, after pins 72, 94 and 98. Each time slack_sdk's retry handler waited about 31 seconds, and 100 pins took 168 seconds. More on those waits in Slack API rate limits.

Pins through the API

pins.list returns every pin in a channel, with who pinned it and when. This is the entry for our edited test message:

{
  "type": "message",
  "created": 1790772531,
  "created_by": "U0B7L4YK420",
  "message": {
    "ts": "1790772531.207499",
    "text": "Release checklist for v2.15 lives in this thread. Owners: Jane (QA), Sam (deploy), Ana (docs).",
    "edited": {"user": "U0B7L4YK420", "ts": "1790772576.000000"},
    "pinned_to": ["C0C6GFR9G2C"]
  }
}

A bot pins with pins.add (channel ID plus the message ts) and needs the pins:write scope; pins.list needs pins:read. Our bot was a member of the channel. The bot token guide covers scopes and reinstalling after you add them.

FAQ

What is the difference between pinning and Save for later?

A pin is shared: everyone in the channel sees it in the Pins tab. Save for later is private to you, with an optional reminder; see Slack Save for later.

Can I pin a message in a DM?

Yes. We pinned a message in a DM with ourselves, and the DM got the same Pins tab as a channel.