This article explains how and when it is helpful to submit an archived messages restoration request.

Messages suddenly disappearing is not an expected behavior. Possible causes that you should be aware of:

• Do you use a mobile device to access Yahoo! Messenger?
• Do you use an external messenger client (e.g., Trillian, Pidgin, Adium, Meebo, etc.)?
• Does anyone other than you have the access to your account? Could they have deleted your messages?
• Are you completely signing out of your Messenger account after use? Leaving Messenger signed in could allow unauthorized access to your account.
• Have you recently changed your password or had issues with your password?

If you do, please be aware that instant messages will not be synced to your account.

If none of the causes above explain the issue, it may be possible for our support agents to restore your Conversation History. The process of restoring your Conversation History or your Yahoo! Mail will perform a restoration of both your Yahoo! Mail account and your Conversation History.

Here's what you need to know before requesting a restoration:

1. If you are missing parts of conversations that took place between 0 and 48 hours ago, use the request for to specify the point of time when your Conversation History looked right.
   
   • NOTE: It is not possible to restore missing messages after 48 hours.
2. When a restore is attempted, this will reset your Mail and Conversation history to the date/time request. All saved Messenger and Mail messages received after the point of time you specify will be deleted.
   
   • Before requesting a restore we recommend that you manually back up any conversations or emails that you don't want to lose in the restore.
3. Yahoo! Mail and Yahoo! Messenger are connected such that if a restore is performed on one, the other is also restored to the same date. Therefore, you also will lose a record of any emails sent or received after the restore time.
   
4. We will notify you of the success or failure of the restore attempt, the process is not guaranteed. We may not be able to recover the messages which are missing

Before you fill out the Mail/ Messenger restore request form, use the information below to save copies of any important email messages or saved Messenger conversations which arrived after the restore point.

NOTE: It is possible that your missing messages have actually been removed. If you have already tried restoring your messages, then it is probable that the messages are permanently missing from your account.

The process of restoring your Conversation History or your Yahoo! Mail will perform a restoration of both your Yahoo! Mail account and your Conversation History. Any messages received after the day and time you selected will not be included in the recovery, this is for messages received in both Messenger and Yahoo! Mail. For this reason we strongly encourage you to do one of the following for any messages received after that time:

• Forward emails to another email account, such as another Yahoo! Mail account, or Gmail or Hotmail.
• Print emails or instant messages that you want to save.
• Save emails or instant messages to your desktop as a text file.

For detailed information about saving your messages, visit the help article, "How do I save offline messages in Yahoo! Messenger?"