Chat History

Skype Chat History

08.24.2008 - admin

Hi all do you know that Skype does keep a copy of all your chat history as the default setting? Kind of scarey if you ask me. I have been working on writing up a full tutorial on how to not only disable the chat history on skype but to delete all the old chats it has saved. Sometimes its a little tricky but do not worry we can get you covered just check here.

Step 1- Open up skype as then click on “tools” in the top right hand corner.

Step 2 - Select “options”

Step 3 - Choose the “Privacy” icon on the left hand side then click on “Privacy Setttings” from the exanded tab.

Step 4 - Look in right side of the menu about the middle vertically. You can see the option ” Keep Chat History for” just select  “no history” click save and you are done.

To also delete your old chat history just follow the same steps above then

Step 5 - Click on the form button that says “Clear Chat History”

Click save and you are done.

I hope this helps you all out there. I know privacy is a big concern of mine online and I would not want anyone else snooping in my chat history. Good luck

 

Tagged: Skype Chat History -

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1. james - August 24, 2008

Wow thanks guys. I was getting worried that my wife would see some of the online chats I have with friend and girls at work. She might take the harmless flirting the wrong way !

2. Steve - September 10, 2008

But doing that erases all the chat history. What if I want to erase to chat history with one person only?

3. Admin - September 16, 2008

Steve. I am not sure its possible to do that. If you work out how can you please update us here?

4. enio morricone - September 29, 2008

wish i had read that earlier, i might not be in the shit now… sound advice, alas too late for me

5. valentina - January 20, 2009

ciao qualcuno invece sa come si puo fare per recuperare le chat di skype anche se ho disinstallato skype dal mio pc?

6. Fervent Burt - March 14, 2009

Great!!!
I like your instructions.
Very practical!!
Thanks

7. Thanki Dhaval - March 20, 2009

Clear the Chat History of one contact in Skype
Posted by Martin in Security, The Web Tags: skype, skype security, skype tips

7

Nov

Did you know that the default setting for the Skype Chat History is forever ? That means, every chat with every contact is still visible using the View Chat History right-click menu option. This could be a privacy related issue if someone else has access to your computer.

Skype offers a way to delete the complete chat history of every contact and to change the time period in which the chat history is kept. It leaves the user clueless however on how to remove the chat history with one contact only and the official answer from Skype is that it is not possible to delete the chat history of one contact.

This is only partially correct. There is no easy way to clear the chat history but there is one. Skype saves all chats with contacts in a Skype folder in Documents & Settings. The full path would be C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\Skype\skype username.

In there you find the databases chatmsg256.dbb, chatmsg512.dbb, chatmsg1024.dbb, chatmsg2048.dbb, chatmsg4096.dbb and chatmsg8192.dbb. Those files contain your chat history. Unfortunately though those are not sorted by contact but by length.

This means that you would have to open each of the files and look for the lines of the contact that you want to delete. What makes things worse is that there will be lots of garbage in the text editor and that it is not always obvious who the chat contact of the current line is.

The best approach in my opinion would be to make copies of the files and work with them. You can’t open the originals if Skype is open and you do need Skype to look at the chat history and search for the phrases in those files.

It is lots of work but the only working way of clearing the chat history of one contact in Skype.

8. Vitrag Bavishi - April 14, 2009

how do i delete other peoples chat history to whom i have chat ?

9. Wez - September 3, 2009

Nice one,, ass saved,,, shot dude !

10. aka - September 23, 2009

Is there any possibility that i could bring back my old chat history,before i reinstalled windows?

11. Unhappy with Skype - October 18, 2009

Now, going back on the privacy issue, I don’t particularly like that your conversations will always be saved. Guess its like email… just gotta learn how to not write anything you may regret… ever.

Also, people take Skype chats and can use them out of context with third parties.

12. keong - November 19, 2009

thanks, you’ve helped me alot.

13. Jose - November 25, 2009

VI- yes some help with # 8 please!!!

14. Pril - November 27, 2009

http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=178741

15. slava - December 1, 2009

1) Download SQLiteSpy
2) Close Skype.
3) Find main.db in D:\Documents and Settings\\Application Data\Skype\\
4) Open it in SQLiteSpy
5) View all your data and use SQL commands to remove unneeded messages, such as
“delete from Messages where author=’sweetheart’”
6) Vacuum Database
7) Close SQLiteSpy
8) Open skype

16. Emz - December 27, 2009

I found it a great help!! It has now pretected me from getting in deep trouble with mum!! Im so glad i hid my convo with my boyfriend! Thankyou! I thourght the instructions were great and very easy to follow and understand even for a thick computer person!!

17. Nemo - December 28, 2009

If you like to keep Skype history for you but not on a local PC, there is a great way to save it in your Gmail account - http://www.g-recorder.com

18. Madhu Goud - December 31, 2009

Its really helped me to maintain privacy. Skype is a very good tool for communicating across the world. I really appreciate the complete step by step procedure for understanding even for non tech guy. Great process.

19. sol - January 8, 2010

Hola a todos.

Por lo que lei skype almacena un historial de las conversaciones de chat en el disco c:

necesito borrar ungente Algunas conversaciones de chat de Skype desde mi computadora,

el problema es que no se en que carpeta los archiva el sistema operativo Windows Vista, tampoco la extension que tiene este archivo, he buscado en todo mi pc pero no he encontrado nada.

alguien puede ayudarme? por favor

saludos

20. f-O - January 13, 2010

I can’t see my historic on my skype page but i can find them on the path. Someone can help me to read them because those files are in .dat and i don’t know what to use to read it. Edit pad and note pad doesn’t work

21. J.C. - January 15, 2010

I cleared my history in Skype, as described above. However, I need to try to recover my last conversation before I cleared it. When I open main.db in Wordpad, I still see some of the last conversation I had. However, when I open main.db in SQLiteSpy, I can’t see that conversation. Any help?

22. gabbymonster - February 9, 2010

folks thanks for all this …. is there absolutely no way at all to do something within skype files to permanently set defauly to “no history” ? I regularly run a file erase on the skype folders (i think this also erases the config file) and each time I do skype starts with “history forever” default again …….

23. nishanti - February 23, 2010

how do i read my old chat history?

24. randomguy - March 18, 2010

gabby you can change the default to no history in Skype - Options - Privacy (you may need to click advanced after this) - then from here you will see there is a drop down box for history settings. Just change this to No History

25. Richard - March 31, 2010

Well, the Delete history is gone for ever
I have been using skype for over 4 yrs and it had lots of info now am free.

26. may - April 8, 2010

I want to back my skype older message .How can I get this?please mail to me.Its have very important data in my life.

27. may - April 8, 2010

where save all of our old message?how can I get my older message in skype

28. may - April 8, 2010

I want older message in skype,its from very begining,how can I get it

29. zac - May 2, 2010

I used to be able to view my chat history from whenever, but now it only seems to let me see Yesterday or 7 days. How can I see older messages?

30. chat yap - May 3, 2010

thankss very nice a porgram

31. Nisha - May 13, 2010

Hello,

I want to check a very important chat history with a contact in my contact list. but when i click on chat history, all I see is a blank chat window. though some of the chat histories am able to retrieve. Does formatting the system delete chat history. If yes, is there anyway to get the history back.

Any help will be highly appreciated.

32. Joe - May 17, 2010

how do you do it????? HI!!!!!

33. Buckaroo - June 8, 2010

It’s funny that everyone thinks you are safe if you just delete the chat history from within skype. Don’t be lulled into false security. You need to go into C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Application Data\Skype and delete the backups of your convos there too. Especially if the person you are hiding whatever you are hiding it from is computer savvy.

34. Snype - June 16, 2010

I share a skype login with my husband - I have set the privacy to ‘no history’ on my computer and so there is no history visible. But when he has skype open my last chat with a friend is still there for all to see. The privacy setting does NOT delete the chat, it just hides it from your view and creates a false sense of security.

Also on ‘no history’ - I just opened Skype and there was a message waiting for me, but before I could read it Skype decided to upgrade. Then it shut down and required a login again. The waiting message was no longer available when I logged back in, it seems to have been deleted from history when Skype needed to restart.

35. SWE - June 22, 2010

how can i see my chat history from another pc?!!when i want to review my chat in work from home it doesnt show??so how can i do that?any help plese

36. mona - June 25, 2010

I am not able to see old messages on right clicking a contact for ‘view old messages’ . the tools>options>… is well set.

37. chat - July 12, 2010

thank you

38. moose - July 15, 2010

Hi..
basically i had a skype account on my old computer, i deleted all my conversation history… i changed computer and i waswondering if there is ANY way possible of retrieving it as it has old contacts ad so on.. if anyone could help that would be amazing, thanks! =]

39. bradley Q - July 24, 2010

To save for one contact, type this in your convo to the specific person:

/history

Then select all, copy, and paste. /htmlhistory used to work and open it up in a new tab on your web browser…but stopped working.

I don’t think this is scary at all, unless you have something to hide amongst the people who are on your computer. I’m glad that this is the default. So many people have told me phone numbers and addresses that I have to end up looking through the history for. Also, I’ve had lots of intriguing conversations that I’m glad still exist.

If you want to back up your files, open up command prompt (search how for your Windows version). Then type this:

cd %appdata%
xcopy Skype C:\skype_backup_folder\ /e /i /h /-y

Or, copy and paste this into a file named “backup_skype.bat”. Only use this if you feel comfortable with it. Then whenever you want to backup, just double click backup_skype.bat.

xcopy %appdata%\Skype C:\skype_backup_folder\ /d /e /i /h /y

40. duckyvideos - July 27, 2010

Thank you