How to Store Facebook Chat History for Later Viewing

Posted on November 25, 2009 at 5:03 am

If you’ve ever wanted to go back and read an old chat that you had with someone on Facebook, you were probably sorely disappointed when you found out that there is no Facebook chat history!

Yes, it’s annoying as anything. Apparently, chat history in Facebook is only as long as you keep your current session open, which means if you close the browser, your chat history is gone.

That sucks! Unfortunately, there is no way to retrieve Facebook chat history and Facebook has no plans to allows users to save it in the future. If you want to record your chats in Facebook, you’re going to have to do it on your own.

Luckily, there are a few add-ons for your browser that can help out in this respect. Currently, the only browser that has an add-in to store Facebook chat history is Firefox!

facebook chat history

Facebook Chat History Manager is a great add-on for Firefox that integrates right into Facebook and captures all your chats silently and neatly.

Of course, you have to be chatting in Facebook while within Firefox and with this add-on enabled, but it’s the best solution I’ve seen out there to this point. You can view the chat history either online or offline, which is nice.

Also, the messages and chats are securely stored and no one else can view them since it’s on your local machine.

Here’s how to install the add-on. First, install the Firefox extension from here:

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/12338

Once installed, you need to create your account. You can do that by visiting this site:

http://apps.facebook.com/firechm/

Go ahead and click Login or Allow so that the program has access to your Facebook account.

facebook chat history manager

You can also create an account by going to Tools, Facebook Chat History Manager and clicking on Create Account.

To view your chat history online, just go to this URL:

http://apps.facebook.com/firechm/

and then click on the View Chat History link towards the bottom. You can also view the chat history while offline by pressing Ctrl + Alt + F to open the chat history window.

So before you have another conversation on Facebook, make sure you install this handy little add-on so you can record everything! Enjoy!

» Filed Under Computer Tips

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Comments

3 Responses to “How to Store Facebook Chat History for Later Viewing”

  1. Facebook said on : November 25th, 2009 at 3:03 pm

    Previously, I used to use a Facebook app called Scrapboy. It’s kind of a social networking app, but it also stores your chat history so you can view it later on.


  2. Esha said on : March 9th, 2010 at 11:23 pm

    I can’t get this to work! I want to record all my chats, but I think it might be easier to just install a keylogger while I chat! Why does Facebook not make it easy to view your past chats? What’s the deal?


  3. TheLastAir said on : May 26th, 2010 at 1:18 am

    that’s because facebook wants you to use your regular YM for proper discussions. To be quite frank, we do not really know if some guys at facebook are recording our chats and letting other people take note of what we tell others. The owner can not be trusted with private information. Long time back he called everyone dumb for trusting him with their secrets and private information… you chat history is the least of your worries with facebook… I am getting out of it soonest I can or putting in a dummy persona. Not worth all the pain people. Be careful there is Safe S*x but no Safe Facebook


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