How to Look at Old AIM Conversations on a Mac

If you use AIM for Mac when doing business, it is important to have access to old conversations for tracking purposes. As long as logging is enabled in your AIM client, you can view prior conversations on your Mac. When logging is enabled, an option to view log files is added to your AIM client, and your AIM conversations are saved to a log file in HTML format. AIM opens the log file for viewing in your default Web browser. Use your browsers “Find” feature to locate specific buddies or conversation topics in the log file.

Enable Logging

Open AIM for Mac, then log in with your AOL username and password.

Click the gear icon in the bottom toolbar under your Buddy List to open the AIM Settings menu.

Click the "IM" icon in the Settings screen to open the IM Settings menu.

Click the check box next to the “Enable IM Logging” option. The option is enabled.

Click the red dot in the left corner of the window to save the preferences and close the window.

View Past Conversations

Open AIM, and then log in with your AOL username and password. Click the “People” icon on the bottom of the Buddy List to open the People menu.

Click the “View IM Log” option. The AIM log file opens in your default Web browser. The log file contains your chat history with all buddies.

Click “Edit,” then click “Find” in your Web browser to launch the inline Find feature, known as “Find on this Page” in Internet Explorer. Type the name of your AIM buddy into the “Find” input box. Click “Next” or “Find," depending on your browser’s options, to locate the conversation with a specific user in the log file.

Close the Web browser window to stop viewing and exit the log file.