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Are you *sure* there's no way to retrieve MSN Messenger history without "archive messages" selected?

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Summary: Without the "archive messages" selected, there is NO way to retrieve MSN Messenger History.

Are you *sure* there's no way to retrieve MSN Messenger history without "archive messages" selected?

I've actually been asked "are you sure?" several times. I'm not sure if it's suspicious spouses or parents - or perhaps nervous spouses or kids - but here's one example:

From your article Can I retrieve old MSN Messenger conversations? I just wanted to quickly ask if there is any other way to retrieve MSN history if the "auto archive messages" option is not chosen. There must be a way!!

Not that I'm aware of, anyway. Conversations, when not being archived, may never even hit the disk, so there's nothing saved to be recovered. There might be small, tiny chances that some memory swapping happened and that a fragment landed on disk, but again the chances are small and it was probably immediately overwritten. The same tiny chance applies for any equipment that the conversation traveled through.

To go further down that path you're really talking computer forensics - the stuff of computer detectives pulling apart hard drives to see what can be recovered even from deleted data. But as I said, it's unlikely there's anything TO recover. And that's an expensive path to go down.

If you're looking at all this before the fact, you could install various forms of spyware. My prior article How can I keep my kids safe from internet garbage? discusses this, and has links to some resources.

Related:

Article 286 | Posted June 12, 2004

Recent Comments
51 Comments

hiiii Leo!
i have a question.. usually my conversations are saved and the option is ticked... but last night i left my computer on and i KNOW that i have gotten an IM... my computer then went to sleep after several hours, i came back this morning, hoping to find the messages... but they werent there! before when my computer was asleep and i came back to it, all of the windows were still open.. but not this time!! the conversations that i had open on MSN were NOT in the history [although the older ones were...] and the new ones were nowhere to be found!! is there any way of retreiving those...? it SHOULD be possible, since my auto-save option is ticked....?
thanks in advance!!

Posted by: Kasia at June 10, 2008 3:22 AM

i dont think tis is fare cus its kinda like nosing around into other peoples bissness

Posted by: aimee at June 26, 2008 11:53 AM

i have activated record my conversation form my msn but last week have deleted like i always do delete my conversation history but i wanted to keeep one of the conversations in tjose i deleted and from recycle too can i have a way or is tehre a place where i can find iyt or them my converstaion from the 15th of august if i can find them some where in my pcv where and what do i use to read them after pls answer me or tell me or give me the site to laod the prgm for if i need one

Posted by: roger at August 17, 2008 8:24 PM

Hi leo, my question is similar to Amz's question. My convos all automatically saved but they were deleted by my sister who I sold my computer to. I thought I could retrieve them anywhere but don't know how. Can anyone help? The conversations are a year old.

Posted by: Lana at August 30, 2008 11:31 PM

Also I have asked my friends for the old convos and most of them do not keep them saved.

Posted by: Lana at August 30, 2008 11:33 PM

I tried to save chats on msn but there is no message tab on my msn version. how can i do it? I use 2pcs, can i retreive the history of the chats from both pcs, even though actual chat took place on another pc?

Posted by: May at September 25, 2008 3:06 AM

hi there leo,
Am i right in thinking a convo can only be saved on to the disc of the pc the convo is taking place at?
is there any way at all a convo coyld appear on the disc when you are not actually at that pc using messenger?
My partner swears his pc was remotely hacked , becasue there is a convo on his disc that he swears was not made by him. is this possible?

Posted by: clare at October 5, 2008 2:39 AM

i deleted my message history since a week.now i need it back very badly.is there by any chance be saved somewhere?
please help me how i can get it back..thanks

Posted by: abeer at October 11, 2008 11:03 PM

I need a conversation I haven't saved on my computer from only a few hours ago. Any ways to retrace it? I might need it for a police investigation, could I turn to the police to see if they saved it on their computer?

Posted by: KLL at October 25, 2008 2:10 PM

I need a conversation I haven't saved on my computer from only a few hours ago. Any ways to retrace it? I might need it for a investigate.

Posted by: fady haddad at October 31, 2008 2:38 AM

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