Most of us often discuss important matters over chat and therefore like to have a backup of these chats. If you are using Gmail Chat or Google Talk as you instant messaging client, taking a backup becomes much easier. Gmail gives you the option of taking a backup of your Gmail Chat history to your desktop that can be accessed anytime.
Ideally if you have enabled “Save Chat History” and are not chatting “Off Record”, Gmail will save the Gmail Chat and Google Talk chat history in a separate “Chat folder” online. This folder can be accessed anytime online. However if you want to take an offline backup , you can follow the instructions that follow.
Gmail offers offline access to its users. We will use this Gmail service to backup our Gmail Chat conversations. For this method to work you need to Install Google Gears for your browsers first ( Google Chrome comes pre-installed with Google Gears).
It is a free software offered by Google that enables more powerful web applications, by adding new features to your web browser . You can download it from here. Run the .exe file and wait for a few minutes for it to install. You would need to restart your open browsers to see the effect of Google Gears. Restart your browser and move ahead with the following guide.
If you wish to take a backup of Gmail Chat History offline, follow the following steps.
Step 1 : Click Settings > Offline.
Step 2 : Under the Offline Mail chose “Enable Offline Mail for this computer”.
Step3 : In the Download options Click on “Change Label Settings”.
Step4 : Choose “All” for the labels you want to take a backup of. To backup Chat conversations only select “None” for all the other Labels. You can also alter the time period for which you want the backup.
Step 5 : Click Save Changes.
Step 6 : In the popup window asking you to Install Offline Access for Gmail , Click on Install.
Takes a bit of time . 
Once you click Install, Gmail will automatically sync your Chats to your computer which can be accessed anytime in the friendly Gmail enviornment. The process may take a bit of time , if the backup is large. Next time you login into your Gmail account , it will automatically sync to update all your conversations to the current date.
To access Offline Gmail mode , you will need to use your Gmail password.
This is how you backup your Gmail Chat History . If you have any further queries , ask us through comments . We will try to answer them as quickly as possible.
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{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Is there a way to extract your chat logs if you dont want to use the gmail interface? i.e. for backing up your chat logs.
Hi,
This is an excellent method untill the computer in which gears is installed, is OK. If we reinstall gears, or windows, we can not read the old stored chat data. we need to take a back up again. Is there any method by which we can retrieve the old data
i want to take my al chat back-up from my mail. and i want to delete from my mail account but i want to save somewhere chat history. is it possible. what can i do for this.