(no subject)

[heidi]

Someone must've done this: Is there any way to move YM from one computer to another while retaining one's message archive?

Yay! I did it! Thanks to all for their help!

Comments

[metallumai.livejournal.com]

I'm sure Sam will know-- wait till he gets himself back online. :D

[copperbadge.livejournal.com]

I'm actually a bit confused -- aren't YM's archives stored somewhere else? The fact that it always takes mine a while to load fully suggest to me that YM keeps them on a server of their own -- you should be able to log into YM on any computer and access your archives.

Shouldn't you? *headscratches* I dunno. I've never done it.

[friede.livejournal.com]

Nope -- they're on your hard drive. For example, my conversations with Heidi are at:

C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\devartfriede\Archive\Messages\heiditandy

Each person I've ever spoken to and every conference I've been a part of is logged in

C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles\devartfriede\Archive\

which breaks into \Messages\ (and further into individual IDs) and \Conferences\ (also broken down by ID).

Heidi, kazzik's right -- you can pull down the files and move them. The individual logs are .dat files which can be moved, copied, pasted, renamed -- though how to open them without Y!M I haven't a clue.

So, I experimented.

First, I copied some of the files and put them in an unrelated subdirectory to be safe, then renamed them (so that if there are overlapping days between the old computer's logs and the new, there won't be any overwriting).

Now, when I tested this, I found that if you move the posts into the individual folders after renaming them (the naming convention is YearMonthDay-username.dat) -- for example, renaming

20040614-devartfriede.dat
20040614b-devartfriede.dat

you can open Y!M and pull up the Message Archive and see the files.

If there are two June 14, 2004 entries, as there would be if I put 20040614b-devartfriede.dat into the devartfriede folder (yes I do talk to myself), then both would show up in the Message Archive, no problem.

Just a point -- if you rename the files 20040614-usernameb.dat, the username will change to usernameb when you go to the Message Archive and look at the chatlog. For example, it will look like:

usernameb: LOL

Hope this helps!

[kazzik.livejournal.com]

"Heidi, kazzik's right -- you can pull down the files and move them. The individual logs are .dat files which can be moved, copied, pasted, renamed -- though how to open them without Y!M I haven't a clue."

I like hearing I'm right ;)

And yahoo's encoding is a bitch - the short answer is that you can't open them without yahoo as they only load through the yahoo interface (when logged online - not fun for those of us still with die-l up).

The longer answer means downloading a program specifically designed to load yahoo archives - such as Yahoo Message Archive Decoder - which is the one I have, but the free version blocks out numbers - kinda harsh for the l33t teenies ;) - its interface is less than fun, so I tend to log on and go through yahoo if I need anything though.

Your experimenting is interesting - the only variable I've ever changed has been the date, thanks for posting here, it's something I may use in the future :)

[celtling.livejournal.com]

Try locating the archive files and copying them to the same directory on the new computer after you've re-installed the program. If you can't figure out where the files are stored, do a search on a phrase you know will be in the message archive somewhere =)

Celt

[kazzik.livejournal.com]

Yeah - copy the folder holding the archives from computer A to the corresponding place on computer B

In the standard download the archived files in the standard download are kept in the folders here C:\Program Files\Yahoo!\Messenger\Profiles - either copy the entire folder and replace the folder at B with this archive OR open and copy each individual folder/file over if you have data on B you don't want to lose.

Does this make enough sense?