CODEWITHSUNDEEP
slackslack-api
Dima Chubarov
Dima Chubarov

Reputation: 17159

Unable to delete a message sent via Incoming Webhooks

I am using Slack Incoming Webhooks requests to post messages to a Slack channel from an app. I love it since I can send messages directly from shell scripts.

However going further I stumble into the problem that I seem to be unable to delete messages.

The app has two access tokens:

Using the xoxp- OAuth access token I can retrieve channel history.

curl "https://slack.com/api/channels.history?token=xoxp-012345678901-012345678901-012345678901-0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef&channel=CABCDABCD&count=20&pretty=1"

With the xoxb- token the channels.history request fails with 

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

In chat history I have a message that I would like to delete. The message was posted using Incoming Webhooks associated with the App.

{
    "type": "message",
    "subtype": "bot_message",
    "text": ":heavy_check_mark:",
    "ts": "1580968882.000800",
    "bot_id": "BABCDABCD",
    "blocks": [
        {
            "type": "section",
            "block_id": "5Ov",
            "text": {
                "type": "mrkdwn",
                "text": "text of the message to delete",
                "verbatim": false
            }
        }
    ]
}

However neither token works with chat.delete. Both 

curl "https://slack.com/api/chat.delete?token=xoxb-012345678901-012345678901-0123456789abcdef01234567&channel=CABCDABCD&ts=1580968882.000800&pretty=1"

and

curl "https://slack.com/api/chat.delete?token=xoxp-012345678901-012345678901-012345678901-0123456789abcdef0123456789abcdef&channel=CABCDABCD&ts=1580968882.000800&pretty=1"

fail with

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

And the question is: Is there a way to delete a message posted by an app via Incoming Webhooks requests?

PS. Both chat:write:bot and chat:write:user permissions are granted.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 7336

Answers (2)

alamirfan
alamirfan

Reputation: 523

Incoming webhooks do not allow you to delete a message after it's been posted. If you need a more complex chat flow including message deletion, call chat.postMessage.

https://api.slack.com/messaging/webhooks

Upvotes: 1

Erik Kalkoken
Erik Kalkoken

Reputation: 32697

Yes, but the token owner needs to be admin in order to have the right to delete message of other users / apps.

To clarify: This has nothing to do with OAuth scopes, but with the Slack role of the user who owns the token.

Upvotes: 1

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