Those who can not think the past are reprobate to repeat it . Who said that ? permit me scroll back in Messages to find the precise person . ( Ah , yes , George Santayana . )
One of iChat ’s nice features was the way it allow you to sieve through the transcripts of past chats ; you always had a criminal record of the promise you made for work ( or in the rest of life ) . Although the newMessagesapp in Mountain Lion does n’t do away with transcripts , it repackages the lineament in a style that many iChat veteran get isolated .
The central difference is imbed in the Messages interface : New World chat are no farseeing thing that subsist in their own tabbed pop - up windows . alternatively , the app organizes conversations in the principal Messages windowpane : In that window ( the one mark Messages ) , chats appear in a conversation sidebar on the left field . Entries in this list stand for both active chats with a contact ( across all the servicing they may utilize ) and the historical record of those schmooze , if you ’ve chosen to store it .
In iChat , you could set an option to save up a transcript for every chat ; that option is preserved but relocated in Messages . UnderMessages > Preferencesin the General view , checkSave history when conversations are closed . If this option stay uncurbed — its default mount — no transcripts are saved . check into it , and the app write all conversation to harrow . ( If the option is unchecked , quitting the program does n’t delete all record of a current conversation . But that record will be delete when you come together a conversation using the X clit that appears when you hover over it with your Spanish pointer , or when a conversation is choose and you chooseFile > skinny Conversation . )
If you have set up Messages with Apple ’s iMessage system so that it uses the same Apple ID you ’re using on other devices and reckoner , the transcripts of conversation you had on those other equipment will also be saved . For other chat services , such as AOL Instant Messenger , the text recordings are saved only on the machine from which you conducted the Old World chat .
Finding conversations
you may interact with conversation histories through the Messages sidebar in two ways .
Scroll back : For a given session — or , with keep open transcripts , all sessions ever — you could select a contact in the conversation sidebar and then startle scroll “ half-witted ” ( upward ) to go back in time . The Messages app mechanically load former days and conversation sections as necessary .
Search : flick the Search theater of operations and eccentric in a terminus . Messages applies the term against any contact in the sidebar and all put in chronicle for each contact , and hides contacts for which it finds no match . Use Command - G orEdit > line up > Find Nextto bike through matches in the transcripts . statement - Shift - K andFind Previouslet you turn guidance .
scroll backward and searching both require that the middleman with whom you had the chat you ’re face for is in the conversation sidebar . If ( for whatever reason ) the contact is n’t listed there , you must start a young conversation with him or her before you’re able to see a transcript of your old schmooze . Once you start that new conversation , the transcripts will dismount up in the chat section of the windowpane .
( Tip : If a contact is n’t in the conversation sidebar on the left , mark off theFile > Recent Itemsmenu ; if the soul is there , you’re able to select that name to open a transcript without starting a new schmooze . )
you may get the files stop these transcripts with a bit of effort . In a Finder window , start typingchatin the field ; the optionChat transcriptwill come along . cluck that , and the Finder windowpane will show all matching transcripts . you’re able to then add a contact ’s name to your hunting terms to drill down more on the nose . ( The transcript preview in Spotlight , but can be far too little to view . )
you may also see individual files in the Finder by navigating to the obscure Library booklet . In the Finder , chooseGo > Go To Folderand enter~/Library / Messages / Archive/. Messages sticks chitchat copy here , organizing them into folders by date ; within those folders , transcripts are sieve into case-by-case files by liaison name . Any contact lens may have multiple files split up across a daytime by meter , as well . Messages uses the same .ichat file data formatting as its predecessor did . two-fold - click a file , and it will open up in Messages as a view - only conversation . ( The file have the impinging ’s name , the particular date , and then the 24 - hour - clock meter pestle from that finical slice . )
Attachments , such as photos or any other files transmit via Messages to another party , are also redeem when you opt to keep transcript . you may find them in~/Library / Messages / Attachments / screen out concord to an internal numbering and naming system .
What you can do with conversations
Although you ca n’t export an individual conversation or even part of one , you could replicate and glue it in a relatively plain format . In a conversation or an open up transcript file , drag on to select text edition across messages , or click a substance and then prolong via transformation - click ( for contiguous pick ) or Command - cluck ( for noncontiguous ) .
Right - fall into place any selected subject matter , and selectCopyor chooseEdit > Copy , and then you may paste the results ( with bold formatting for names , and messages indented below each chat player ’s name ) . ChoosingForwardfrom that menu takes the formatted message or message and creates a new empty conversation with that excerption as the first content to send . you could also print the results ( File > Print ) and preserve its original smell ; I recommend print to PDF , as conversations could down a mountain of paper .
Although you have these filing cabinet neatly stow away , you might make up one’s mind to sanctify some of them at a later date . you may sure go through the Archive folder and delete them , but you have two other option : operative and nuclear .
In the surgical approach , while viewing a conversation in Messages , you may click a substance balloon and then right - click it to chooseDelete(or press the Delete key ) to impart up a prompting to remove it . This action delete entry from the transcript single file and from the active conversation windowpane .
If you prefer the atomic alternative , select a conversation and chooseEdit > Delete Transcript . The Messages app wo n’t just delete what you ’re looking at on screen . Rather , it will go back through every stored schmooze data file for that striking and delete all of them from saucer — without a prompt ! ( That ’s what musical accompaniment are for . )
