How to enable and view your Message History.

You can to save your conversation history through Yahoo! Messenger for viewing at a later date, but you must set this preference. Since this feature does require use of disk space on your local system, we will not automatically save all of your conversation history until you change your preferences.

To check or modify the preferences for archiving messages through Yahoo! Messenger:

1. Click the Messenger menu in Messenger.
2. Select Preferences.
3. Click the Archive category.
4. Check one of the following archiving options:
   • Yes, save all of my messages
   • Yes, save all of my messages, but clear them each time I sign out (this is the Default Setting)
   • No, do not save any of my messages
5. Click OK at the bottom of the window.

The Archives messages are saved on your local system, providing this option has been selected, in encrypted .DAT files. These files can only be viewed by the Yahoo! ID that created them.

To view your message Archives:

1. Sign in to Yahoo! Messenger.
2. Select Contacts in the main menu.
3. Select Message Archive.

This displays the archive, with messages organized by your contact names.

NOTE: If the archived messages are not set to "save," or if the files have been removed (uninstalling Yahoo! Messenger will NOT remove these files), the conversation history cannot be restored.