Archive a channel

You can archive channels you no longer plan to use. Archiving a channel:

Removes it from the left sidebar for all users.
Prevents new messages from being sent to the channel.
Prevents messages in the channel from being edited, deleted, or moved.

Archiving a channel does not unsubscribe users, or change who can access it. Messages in archived channels still appear in search results, the combined feed, and recent conversations. If you prefer, you can configure an archived channel to hide its content.

Archive a channel

Channels can be unarchived only by contacting support for organizations hosted on Zulip Cloud, or by your self-hosted server's administrator.

Desktop/Web

Click on the gear () icon in the upper right corner of the web or desktop app.
Select Channel settings.
Click All channels in the upper left.
Select a channel.
Click the archive () icon in the upper right corner of the channel settings panel.
Click Confirm.

You can also hover over a channel in the left sidebar, click on the ellipsis (), and select Channel settings to access settings for the channel.

View archived channels

Desktop/Web

Click on the gear () icon in the upper right corner of the web or desktop app.
Select Channel settings.
Click All channels in the upper left.
Select Archived channels from the dropdown next to the Filter box above the list of channels.

Hide content in an archived channel

Desktop/Web

Click on the gear () icon in the upper right corner of the web or desktop app.
Select Channel settings.
Click All channels in the upper left.
Select Archived channels from the dropdown next to the Filter box above the list of channels.
Select a channel.
Select the Subscribers tab on the right.
Remove all subscribers.
Select the General tab on the right.
Under Channel permissions, make the channel private.
Under Advanced configurations, remove everyone from Who can subscribe to this channel, and Who can subscribe anyone to this channel. These permissions give users content access to the channel.

You can also make these configuration changes prior to archiving a channel.

Unarchiving archived channels

Zulip Cloud organizations that need to unarchive a channel can contact Zulip support.

If you are self-hosting, you can unarchive an archived channel using the unarchive_channel management command. This will restore it as a private channel with shared history, and subscribe all organization owners to it.

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Archive a channel