Every version of YM that I've used over the years kept the archived chats in the same file path. I am still using YM 7.5xx so I'm not sure if one of the newer versions have changed the file path. Under my file path to Profiles, then to one of my Yahoo ID's, I then have the following folders.
C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\(Yahoo ID)\... \Archive \My Icons Under ...\Archive, I have folders for... \Conferences \Messages In the \Conferences folder, there are the .dat files for each Conference I may have had. In the \Messages folder, there are the .dat files for each IM session that I've had. I hope you weren't looking for any chat sessions you may have had in a chat room as those are not kept on your computer... only the individual chats. Yes, the archiving feature only activates and saves messages when you have the archiving feature turned on in your Preferences. If you turn it off, I think it deletes the Archived Messages folder... then when you start it back up archiving, it starts up new. If you turned archiving off, you may have lost all of your past IM messages. Lenny Vasbinder FREE and automatic online remote backup of your documents, photos and files... https://mozy.com/?ref=SY4ZSI Check out how simple and secure it can be to use the Mozy remote backup system. Mozy will back up your most important files and folders every day/night while you aren't using your computer. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of srikanth vullaganti Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 9:11 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [Y!M] Re: yahoo chat recovery.. help me plzzz thank you so much for your help... i really appreciate the concern u people are showing .thnqq very much.. but i donot have any dat files stored in the address location u mentioned.. are they stored only whn i activate my archives in messenger..all i can see in my profile folder is myicons folder which has an index file and a dat file .. but when i tried opening it with notepad it is showing some gibberish script... so if u can help me.. i will be very much thankful to you. regards.. srikanth ----- Original Message ---- From: LNVTM1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] Sent: Tuesday, 27 May, 2008 9:10:42 AM Subject: RE: [Y!M] Re: yahoo chat recovery.. help me plzzz Where are the files? There are thousands of .dat (data) files kept for nearly every aspect of your computer. Your YM archived chats are in this folder... C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\(your yahoo ID)\Archive Chats with each "friend" are kept in a different file folder and then each days chats are in a separate .dat file starting with the date format 20080527-(your yahoo ID) for today's chats. You can view these .dat files by using YM>Contacts Menu>Message Archive where you will be able to look at them using YM. You can also right click on the .dat file and "Open with..">Notepad, which will open the file and you should be able to read any text associated with the file. There may also be other computer coding in the file when reading it with Notepad that won't show up when looking at the chat session using YM>Contacts Menu>Message Archive feature. On your friends list, you can also right click on a particular name and choose Message Archive and it will open the same Message Archive window but directly to that friends name. One last thing.. if you are in contact with relatives of your deceased friend... is you could check to see if they saved their archived chat sessions. If they did, you could copy the file from their computer and you might have to change the file name to show your yahoo ID, rather than theirs, and then you should be able to import the file into your Archive folder and view it using YM. Make a copy of the original file without changing the name first and experiment on the copy since I'm not sure how this would work since I've never tried it but in theory, it should work. Lenny Vasbinder FREE and automatic online remote backup of your documents, photos and files... https://mozy.com/?ref=SY4ZSI <https://mozy.com/?ref=SY4ZSI> Check out how simple and secure it can be to use the Mozy remote backup system. Mozy will back up your most important files and folders every day/night while you aren't using your computer. -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> [mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ] On Behalf Of Terry Sent: Tuesday, May 27, 2008 7:20 AM To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> Subject: [Y!M] Re: yahoo chat recovery.. help me plzzz I have also lost chats in the message archive, but have noticed on my computer there are files with a "dat" file name that appear to be messages archived. Can these be opened and how please? > > Another thing you might check is with one of the many desktop search > programs. I use Google Desktop and I know it doesn't archive the chat > sessions but other desktop search programs may. Do you have one running on > your computer? > > For others reading this, it's a good idea to turn on your archiving feature > on the Main Preferences Menu on YM. This way, all of your chats would be > saved on your own computer in the event you ever need access to them. > > Lenny Vasbinder No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG. Version: 8.0.100 / Virus Database: 269.24.1/1468 - Release Date: 5/26/2008 3:23 PM ------------------------------------ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Unsubscribe from Yahoo_Messenger mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Switch from Normal to Digest mail mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Switch from Normal to NoMail mail mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Switch from Digest or NoMail to Normal mail mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Write to the Moderators and Owner of the List: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Suggestions for improvements to the List should be sent to the "owner" address listed above.Yahoo! Groups Links (Yahoo! 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