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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.

Article C2026 - June 12, 2004

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Recent Comments
20 Comments

OK, I have already tested the application for web chat, and an option was to RETRIEVE CHAT HISTORY... I could not believe it, chat history is stored on some Microsoft server, and now I'm looking for that application on the internet... Wish me luck, if I find it, I will post URL to app...
Best regards,
Vladimir

Posted by: Vladimir at April 8, 2008 7:10 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

Just wondering if there is anyway i can get my msn chat logs back. I did have them sved then ly laptop broke so had to get a system restore an lost them. I really need them so i really need to know if there is any chance...........

Posted by: Stacey at January 19, 2010 3:36 AM

Hi,
I would like to know if there's a way to retrieve ALL the messages in MSN history if we are using different laptops over the years?

Nope. Not that I know of. After all that time and number of machines I'm pretty sure it's gone forever.
Leo
22-Feb-2010

Posted by: rin at February 21, 2010 9:23 AM

No, you cannot get your logs back, they are saved in a file on your computer. If you use a restore disk, it erases your disk and puts everything back to factory defaults. You won't find them saved online. (this is how you can read history, without being logged online)

Posted by: Johny Cash at February 27, 2010 6:45 AM

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