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I always used to save my Chat logs because I use IM in the professional environment. Now I find that I can’t save chat logs anymore. That option is gone. Is there any workaround or hidden preference to enable saving chat logs again?

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2 Answers

up vote 8 down vote accepted

In Preferences, select Messages and check "Save history when conversations are closed." Now when you quit Messages, it will create a collection of chat transcripts. You can easily access these in your Library folder. From Finder, select Go>Go to Folder and type: ~/Library/Messages/Archive. This will take you directly to the appropriate folder.

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Thank you so, so much. I had feared this awesome feature from iChat was gone forever. – Ben Kreeger Aug 29 '12 at 14:32
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I did this, and it does work but only with text. Do you know if there's anyway to have Messages save any images/files sent over chat? – chandsie Oct 25 '12 at 3:15
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The images are stored in the "Attachments" folder, which is a sibling to "Archive". – jeffbyrnes Nov 5 '12 at 15:12

I don't know if you are still looking for an answer to this, but it looks like you can use Automator (in Applications) to copy all files to a certain folder when items are added to the Archive Folder us "Folder Action". I am trying it out now, but seems it should work.

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Do come back and flesh this out with edits as you find it works or does not work. Welcome to the site! – bmike Feb 4 at 21:29

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