Tell me more ×
Ask Different is a question and answer site for power users of Apple hardware and software. It's 100% free, no registration required.
up vote 3 down vote favorite

I setup Mail.app to pull GMail data . I realized that I cannot search within my GoogleTalk chat history. Is there a way or a hack to get the chat history to my folders that get pulled as well so that my search results will include information from Chat as well.

share|improve this question
If google talk is federated with jabber, you could start using iChat but mail can only follow rss or imap/exchange/pop. If you can get an RSS feed of your chat, that might be your only option – bmike♦ Aug 18 '11 at 6:27
Have you configured GMail and Apple Mail for IMAP or POP access? – Wheat Williams Aug 18 '11 at 18:25
I just selected to configure mail from 'Gmail' . It uses IMAP. – Sairam Aug 19 '11 at 4:38

2 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted
+25

Zevlag is right. You're not going to be able to do precisely what you were after (true IMAP syncing of chat logs). But here's a couple of things that you can:

First, you could download your chat logs using this method: http://freshhorse.wordpress.com/2011/07/29/leaving-gmail-and-bringing-your-chats-with-you/

  • This will take quite a bit of time and I doubt you'd want to do it over and over to keep your logs up-to-date. But it will allow you to have an easily searchable record of your chats on your local machine (Spotlight).

Second you could look into Google's APIs for a way to get at your chats. Here's one example of a script attempting this:

https://gist.github.com/1051628

  • This will be even more complicated and still won't get you what you're after but if your a bit of a hacker you might be able to put something together with the API that would keep your local record up-to-date.

Sorry there isn't a way to do just what you want.

-Samuel

share|improve this answer
Great find @samuel I wish someone could use the shared gist to write a thunderbird extension. – palaniraja Aug 29 '11 at 7:30
up vote 0 down vote

It is not possible. It was partially possible once a time, but has been discontinued due to not working properly.

http://groups.google.com/group/Gmail-Help-POP-and-IMAP-en/msg/31a22885e3e9ed57

share|improve this answer

Your Answer

 
discard

By posting your answer, you agree to the privacy policy and terms of service.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.