Is there a way to access Skype IM logs?

Question

I tried looking in C:\Users[name]\AppData\Roaming\Skype and I found a folder called "chatsync" with some mysterious folders with files ending in .dat. I'm almost certain that these are the chat logs but I don't know a way to properly open these files (notepad shows gibberish mixed with English words). I'm not trying to do sleuthing, just a project for my girlfriend.

So more importantly: how can I read Skype's .dat files properly?

Solution 1

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/skype_log_view.html

Solution 2

There is a new, awesome app Skyperious; Skyperious can:

• open local Skype SQLite databases and look at their contents:
• search across all messages and contacts
• browse, filter and export chat histories, see chat statistics
• view any database table and and export their data
• change, add or delete data in any table
• execute direct SQL queries

Solution 3

You can also install SQLite for windows. Messages are stored as a SQLite database (several tables exist in the db - the 'Messages' table holds chat messages).

Solution 4

I know this is a fairly old thread, but I figured add some extra info,

I didn't really like the way the NirSoft Skype Log View is able to export the chat messages, so I kinda hacked together my own parser for it for fun - but I was slightly lazy to add it to any kind of source control mechanism, which might seem awkward, but that's okay.

http://www.mediafire.com/download/yp0r3r5c686ecrk/SkypeMessageParser.zip

I have included the JAR file and the source.

It takes the text file export of Skype Log View (created by the following command)

SkypeLogView.exe /SaveDirect /UseTimeRange 0 /logsfolder "C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\Skype\skypeusername" /stext "C:\Root\Downloads\skypelogview\log.txt"

which has the data format of this:

==================================================

Record Number     : 110

Action Type       : Chat Message

Action Time       : 2012.06.04. 22:31:08

End Time          : 

User Name         : l__i

Display Name      : N___L

Duration          : 

Chat Message      : messagegoeshere

ChatID            : #skypeid/$hashcode

Filename          : 

==================================================

And converts it into this:

[2012.06.04. 22:31:08] l_i (N___L): messagegoeshere

And it also takes the Chat ID and cuts the log up based on that into multiple files, so the chats don't end up mixing together.

For example,

  2012-06-05--l__i-z_n.txt (where the date is the date of the first message).

Usage:

java -jar SkypeMessageParser.jar [path of exported TXT file from SkypeLogViewer] [absolute path of output TXT file]

I hope someone finds this useful! :)

Note: the program expects a system date format of yyyy.MM.dd meaning it will crash if you have the format of dd/MM/yyyy.

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Comments

[eternalmatt]

Two years and a day later, people are still coming to my rescue.

[Barney]

-1: The program reads the log files as requested, but returns them in such a useless format (one long sortable list of granular entries) that any .dat reader would be almost as useful. Roman's answer (Skyperious) actually provides a useful view and navigation tool.

[Barney]

+1: This app fulfills the implicit requirement of parsing the logs and pushing them through to a view which is actually much cleaner and more functional than Skype's native interface (filter by time period etc). Note that the Windows installer fails silently unless explicitly run as administrator.

[EpicPandaForce]

Please note that it relies on using a date format in the form of yyyy.MM.dd. as per system settings, because of the String operations I used which were extremely simplistic.

[Will Strohl]

This worked for me, but I only was able to download the last 6 months, despite seeing nearly 2 years in Skype itself. Also, it asked for a password, then wasn't able to log in to Skype, which made me nervous.

[palash]

Skyperious is a beautiful app, you can see chat history from the beginning of time. You have change its time period filter available in the right panel of the Chats tab. I can see my entire chat history for more than 3 years. You can also export it to a html file It asked for password only to download shared images from Skype server. If you suspect you mayn't give password. You still able to see your chat history.

[polkovnikov.ph]

This one must be a preferred answer.

[polkovnikov.ph]

That's proprietary.

[Titus]

Just downloaded and installed; doesn´t seem to find any data in the file. New DB format for Skype or wrong DB file (%AppData%/Local/Packages/Microsoft.SkypeApp_<gibberish>_/Lo‌​calState/<gibberish>‌​_<skypeusername>.db)‌​?