Slack Terminates Services Across Greater China, Triggering User Backlash

Saturday, 04 April 2026 at 16:01

On April 1, Slack deactivated all workspaces with billing addresses in mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Both paid and free users lost access instantly — messages, files, channels, integrations, all of it gone. A 90-day countdown to permanent data deletion started the same day.

For many users, the first indication anything was wrong was discovering they couldn't log in.

Key Points

Slack terminated all Greater China workspaces on April 1, covering mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau — paid and free users equally affected
All historical messages, files, channels, and workflows became immediately inaccessible — 90-day data deletion countdown now running
Notifications were sent in November 2025 but many users — particularly in Hong Kong — report never receiving them, with emails reportedly going to spam
Larger enterprise clients were directed to migrate to Alibaba Cloud — smaller teams received straight termination notices with no migration option offered
One report suggests Alibaba Cloud may not actually be selling Slack in mainland China anymore, potentially making the migration option nominal at best

What Actually Happened on April 1

The policy itself wasn't new. Salesforce — Slack's parent company — announced last November that it would stop direct service in the region, pointing users toward Alibaba Cloud as the continuation path. The February 2026 deadline passed. Then April 1 arrived and terminations executed.

The problem isn't the policy decision. Salesforce exiting direct service in Greater China is a business and regulatory decision that's defensible on its own terms. The problem is execution. Smaller teams received termination notices with no migration option. Larger enterprise accounts got Alibaba Cloud guidance. The line between which customers got which treatment has never been clearly explained.

The Notification Problem

Slack's support template response confirms notifications were sent to workspace owners and admins in advance. What it doesn't account for is the significant number of users — particularly in Hong Kong — reporting they received nothing. Notification emails going to spam folders is a plausible technical explanation. It's also a deeply inadequate one when the consequence is permanent loss of business data.

Losing access to years of client communication, internal records, and workflow automation without a data export window is the part users are most angry about. Slack's template responses haven't provided specific export procedures or alternative timelines. That gap is where most of the backlash is concentrated.

The Alibaba Cloud Question

There's an unresolved and significant wrinkle in this story. One user on Hacker News reported that Alibaba Cloud told them Slack is no longer being sold in mainland China by either Salesforce or Alibaba. If accurate, the migration option that Slack offered larger customers may have been purely nominal — a paper exit that didn't exist in practice.

This hasn't been confirmed through multiple sources yet and should be treated with appropriate caution. But it's a question Salesforce needs to answer directly.

Taiwan's status remains ambiguous. The November notifications included Taiwan, but Slack's April support template listed only mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau. Whether Taiwanese workspaces face the same fate on a different timeline isn't publicly confirmed.

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