Disabling Channels

Disabling a channel is a visibility and access toggle. The channel and all its data remain intact, but client-side read and write operations return a 403 Not Allowed error. Server-side access is preserved for admin operations like moderation and data export.

Users don't see disabled channels in their query results unless their role has the ReadDisabledChannel permission. For users with that permission, and for server-side queries, disabled channels are returned, except when the filter includes members: then they are left out unless you pass disabled: true. To exclude disabled channels explicitly, filter them out in your queries:

await client.queryChannelsAndHydrate({
  filter_conditions: { disabled: false },
});

Re-enabling a channel restores full client-side access with all historical messages intact.

Disable a Channel

const channel = client.chat.channel("messaging", "general");

// disable a channel with full update
await channel.update({ data: { disabled: true } });

// disable a channel with partial update
await channel.updateChannelPartial({ set: { disabled: true } });

// enable a channel with full update
await channel.update({ data: { disabled: false } });

// enable a channel with partial update
await channel.updateChannelPartial({ set: { disabled: false } });