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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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 !
But doing that erases all the chat history. What if I want to erase to chat history with one person only?
Steve. I am not sure its possible to do that. If you work out how can you please update us here?
wish i had read that earlier, i might not be in the shit now… sound advice, alas too late for me
ciao qualcuno invece sa come si puo fare per recuperare le chat di skype anche se ho disinstallato skype dal mio pc?
Great!!!
I like your instructions.
Very practical!!
Thanks
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.
how do i delete other peoples chat history to whom i have chat ?
Nice one,, ass saved,,, shot dude !
Is there any possibility that i could bring back my old chat history,before i reinstalled windows?
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.
thanks, you’ve helped me alot.
VI- yes some help with # 8 please!!!
http://forum.skype.com/index.php?showtopic=178741
1) Download SQLiteSpy
Open skype
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
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!!
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
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.
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
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
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?
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 …….
how do i read my old chat history?