How to find the root message in a thread in Slack using an @mention in the comments?

Question

Is there a way to find the root message in a thread in slack?

functionally I would like to be able to use an @mention in the comments of a thread to grab the top level post of that thread.

I have the thread T which is the same as the top level post’s T value so i think I should be able to find the top level post somehow, but I am unsure how to do this.

thank you in advance

SamB · Accepted Answer

Hi @Seaney Shell, welcome to the Community! 👋

There isn’t currently a search action that would allow you to get the parent message but we’ve got an existing feature request for this. I’ve added your vote to that so we will email you if/when that gets added.

There’s no ETA on when that might become available. But as you’ve got the Thread Ts, then it seems like you’d be able to use that in a Webhooks by Zapier action as discussed here:

Alternatively you might be able to get it working using Slack’s API Request (Beta) action to find the parent message. You can find out more about how to set up that kind of action here: Set up an API request action. As with the Webhooks by Zapier action you’d need to reference Slack’s API documentation when configuring the request. It looks like Slack’s conversations.history endpoint specifically would be the one you’d need to reference.

Hope that helps to get you pointed in the right direction. If I’ve misunderstood or you run into any issues on that just let us know! 🙂

Seaney Shell · Answer

Thank you so much for the help I did not know that zapier could directly interface with the slack API, or other webhooks!

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