How to Recover Yahoo Chat Messages

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Instant messaging platforms such as Yahoo Messenger enable businesses to communicate with in-house staff, hold teleconferences and send out quick memos to the office. Messages received through Yahoo Messenger can be closed once read, but by utilizing the proper settings, you can also pull a transcript of your chat history to retrieve important memos or discussions. To recover logged messages, you must first enable Yahoo's conversation history. Only messages sent and received after enabling the conversation history can be recovered.

Enable Conversation History

Launch Yahoo Messenger and click the gear-shaped icon.

Select the "Messenger Options" menu, then click the "Other" selection from the displayed menu options.

Select the check box for "Keep a History of my Conversations" if it is unchecked, then click "OK" to save your changes.

Recover Prior Messages

Launch Yahoo Messenger. Click the "Contacts" menu, and then select "Conversation History."

Scroll through the conversation history to locate the message you would like to view. Messages are stored in chronological order and can be sorted by participant or date.

Type in keywords specific to your chat in the search box to locate conversations containing those keywords.