Migrating from Trello to Slack
The main reason teams move from Trello to Slack is team communication and cross functional collaboration. Slack's approach — de facto standard for workplace communication — most pms will use slack daily, and it appears constantly in job descriptions — suits startup and scaleup teams that have outgrown Trello's model. Here's how to migrate without losing historical context.
At a Glance
- Extremely intuitive drag-and-drop Kanban interface — virtually zero learning curve, new users productive within minutes
- Generous free tier with unlimited cards, unlimited Power-Ups, and up to 10 boards per Workspace
- Butler automation engine is powerful and accessible, allowing no-code workflow automation with rule-based, calendar, and due date triggers
- De facto standard for workplace communication — most PMs will use Slack daily, and it appears constantly in job descriptions
- 2,600+ app integrations make it the central nervous system of the product team's tool stack, pulling notifications from Jira, GitHub, Figma, and more into one place
- Channels, threads, and Slack Connect enable structured communication across teams, departments, and even external partners/vendors
You leave behind
- −Kanban boards
- −custom fields
Migration Steps
Audit and export your current workspace
Before touching Slack, document what lives in Trello: projects and tasks, custom fields, automations, integrations, and team permissions. Export a full CSV backup — most tools support this from Settings → Export. Pay particular attention to any custom fields and workflow automations that your team relies on daily.
Set up your Slack workspace
Create your Slack workspace and replicate your project structure using tasks and projects. Slack starts at $8.75/user/mo/user/mo with a free tier available — budget $2.75/user/mo more per user. Run with a single pilot team before migrating everyone.
Map your workflow equivalents
Find the closest Slack equivalent for each Trello feature your team relies on. projects and tasks in Trello maps to tasks and projects in Slack. Prioritise the critical path: task creation, status tracking, and assignment.
Import your data
Slack supports CSV import for tasks and projects and has 20+ native integrations. After importing, rebuild your key automations — Slack's automation engine can replicate most rules you had in Trello. Start with your most active project rather than importing everything at once.
Onboard your team
Run a 30-minute walkthrough covering the daily workflow: how to create tasks and projects, update status, and find your board. Slack has a gentle learning curve — most PMs are fully productive within 1–2 days. Focus the session on the UI differences rather than feature training.
Run Trello in parallel for two weeks
Keep Trello read-only while your team works primarily in Slack. This reduces risk and lets people reference historical context — old decisions, archived tickets, past sprint data — without slowing the migration. After two weeks with no new work going into Trello, archive the workspace and make Slack the official home.
Ready to switch?
Read the full Slack review for pricing, integrations, and team fit details.