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I was using Pidgin as my IM software for Sametime and Google Talk. I'm now switching back to using Sametime 7.5.1 (and Google Talk) separately.

Is there any way to import my chat history from Pigdin to Sametime?

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3 Answers

I believe Pidgin uses either HTML or plain text for it's logs. How does Sametime keep logs? If it uses plain text or HTML then it should be a simple matter of copying the pidgin logs to where Sametime keeps it's logs.

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Sametime also creates a file called PersonFolders.xml (in the root of your chat history location) that indexes all of the chat history files, which Sametime stores in directories based on the userId of the person you wer

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I've the opposite issue, I'm trying to import the chats from sametime to pidgin.

It's feasible but I'm lazy and/or too busy to do it...

Sametime saves the chat history, as pointed out by kdford, in HTML format, under a folder that is equal to the username + the date (YYYY/MM/DD) + usernamelog.html

Pidgin saves the chat history, (normally) in HTML under:



  • DATE is like


  • USER is the username of the person with who you had a conversation

So you can convert/export/import the chat history writing a script or a program in your preferred programming/scripting language.

Also the file personfolders.xml is easy to create as it contains only a list of users and path where the chat are stored.

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><folders>
<folder communityHost="" communityId="" displayName="Joe Foo" folderPath="joefoo@foo.com" id="joefoo@foo.com" isExternal="false"/> 

You could try and maybe post your results/issues and in the case we can help you more.

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