Yahoo Messenger Archive

Hi,

So I have a somewhat unique issue... the latest version of Yahoo! Messenger archives chat messages in the cloud, instead of on the local machine. This would be fine, except for some reason it's not saving my chat conversations. I have pretty crappy internet here (I'm deployed), so I think that might have something to do with it. YIM v10 stores the chat conversations offline, but I would prefer to keep updated to the latest version of YIM.

I'd like free monitoring software that would be able to capture the conversations (my chats, my computer... nothing sinister here), so I can use the latest version of YIM but still archive my chat conversations somehow. I'm aware of keyloggers... but they only capture what I type, not what the other people say.

Before you suggest AIM/MSN/Skype/Facebook/etc., YIM is the only messenger that works decently on my internet. All of the rest are much more frustrating. I've tried them already.

There is a project on SourceForge called IM Sniffer, which supposedly captures IM conversations. However, it was last updated in 2008, so I doubt it would do the job.

Does anyone have a solution that would work for my situation?

 

I use Pidgin, you may have to occasionally fire up the Yahoo client for specifics but it does chat fine with full logging available.

 

Does it have (the most valuable feature of YIM...) the Yahoo! smilies?

 

I'm investigating putting Yahoo smilies into Pidgin... it looks like a fairly customizable program. I'd heard of it before, but hadn't really given it a second thought until you mentioned it, satrow. Thanks, I'll give it a go.

 

Though I doubt this will be an issue for anyone else on this forum, I figured I would post an update:

I had to download the GDK+ runtime by itself (download kept timing out on the install of Pidgin). Anyway, got Pidgin installed and running, found a Yahoo smiley pack and figured out how to get it set as default for messaging. So this works for me! I actually like the more minimalist interface that Pidgin uses. My main problem with third party clients has always been the smilies... but definitely not a problem now.

Thanks, Satrow.