[OS X 10.9.3 (Mavericks)] I've disabled smart quotes in the keyboard settings, but whenever I type ' or " in Messages (old name: iChat), they get converted to ‘ and “. How do I disable this default conversion?

I'm able to able to natively access my iMessages through chat.db. and associated contacts through the databases in ~/Library/Application Support/AddressBook/Sources - is there any similar database for storing group chat membership/metadata? AFAIK this information is not stored in AddressBook or chat.db, although it is possible to access the group chat name through the chat table in chat.db

In a group chat using Messages we noticed this morning that something odd is happening with the chat history. The group was very active yesterday, looking at the chat this morning we noticed: 1. On four devices, with two different owners (an iPhone Xs running iOS 16.5.1, an iPhone 13 mini running iOS 17.1, an M1 MacBook Air running macOS Sonoma 14.0, and an Apple watch) the chat history was in sync, but there were significant gaps in the chat. These devices are all in Washington state in the US. 2. At the same time, on an Intel mid-2014 MacBook Pro running macOS Big Sur 11.7.10 the whole chat appeared to be there -- when I first woke it up. This device is also in Washington state in the US. But... After typing this, I checked again and the chat appears to have sync'd with the other devices and there are large gaps on this device as well. [Edit -- about 10 minutes later the view on this device seems "right" again, though honestly I'm not positive that the right-wrong-right thing happen since I didn't make a screen capture.] 3. There is at least one other device on the chat, a MacBook, with a **third** view of the chat -- this device is in the UK. Also, during the chat, I think I noticed the iPhone mini changing its view (dropping a bunch of the messages from the chat). This happened after I switched from chatting on the phone to chatting on the MacBook Pro. The chat started with two participants on their phones (I'm not sure about the third, but would guess on a relatively recent MacBook with an up to date version of macOS), then those two switched to MacBooks, and then later back to phones. Any idea what could be going on?

I want to run an applescript whenever a certain person signs onto my Messages buddy list I am aware you can run applescripts for messages events, however I don't know how to check if it was that person who signs in.

I'm looking for the file that corresponds to my account photo (this is also my iChat icon). ![](

I have used my gmail account with iChat 4.0.8 (Leopard) about 6 months ago. Since then, I've re-installed OSX Leopard, but I can't get iChat working. Whenever I try to log in I get an error. My question is: did I forget how to do iChat login and could someone please help me? - or does [this notice](https://support.google.com/talk/) make it impossible to log in anymore?

How do you convert the iChat transcript files that Messages creates into human-readable text files that can be opened without the Messages app? For reference, these are the conversation files located in ~/Library/Messages/Archive. Simply opening the .ichat files in a text editor includes a bunch of additional strings and hashes. Opening them in Messages and copy-pasting into a text editor works, but I'd prefer to automate the process if possible.

I am running 10.12.6. My computer was almost out of available space (a few gigabytes left) and then got unplugged and died. When it turned back on, it booted from safe sleep mode and then got unplugged again, and then booted from safe sleep mode one additional time. Because there was so little space left, I think there was something funky about the safe sleep image it was booting from. Messages (the app-as in the old iChat app) gave the message over and over that due the computer being out of disk space new messages would be lost (the computer at this point had 100 mb free space reported). In spite of this new messages continued to appear. However, after making more space and restarting the computer, I have run into the following problem: Messages shows all my previous chats, but any new chats with existing or new contacts results in those new additions not being saved in spite of the option to save chat history when conversations are closed being checked. They show up in real time, but if I quit messages or close the chat, anything new since the problem (with the computer turning back on from safe sleep mode with low disk space) is gone. There is also a badge icon on the dock constantly showing 15 unread messages no matter that I've read all of them and it doesn't change when new ones come in and one conversation in particular always shows the blue unread glyph which doesn't change even when I click "mark all messages as read." I tried deleting various plist files, but I was stabbing in the dark and not sure which to delete. None helped. The chat.db file has not been updated since the issue, so it seems new messages truly aren't being saved. Also no new messages show up under Archive either. (These are the files you find under ~/Library/Messages.) My archive folder is about 500 mb and the db file is only 40 mb for some reason. Is the Archive folder just text copies of what is in the db file? Can I delete anything and force it to rebuild itself? And if I can't uncorrupt it, can I start over with it saving messages? I have already backed up the Messages folder. Thank you. **Edit: I just noticed that chat.db actually is updating with a more current modified time stamp as is chat.db-wal. However, chat.db-shm is stuck on the modified date of when the problems started. The Archive folder still does not show new chats. Also I noticed that unlike what I previously thought, not only does Messages not display new chats after the window is closed, it only displays a certain number of new ones in a particular chat. It displays all the old ones from before the problem started but only a certain number from any particular person I'm chatting with before older ones drop off and are then butted up against the older chats up above if that makes any sense.**

When I try to open old iChat logs (circa 2005) with Messages on Catalina, I get the following error message: > The chat transcript “file name” could not be opened. > > This file appears to be corrupted and can’t be opened. If I try to open the same file in Visual Studio Code, I get the following: > The file is not displayed in the editor because it is either binary or uses an unsupported text encoding. Do you want to open it anyway? When I choose to open it anyway, I think I can make out pretty much all the text, but there's a whole bunch of gobbledygook in there that makes it a pain to read. Here's a sample: > typedstream��
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���������������A�XӷZ�?��������where are you? This post from 2011 on Apple's discussion forum appears to refer to a similar problem, but doesn't offer up any solution. Any way to open these in Messages to be able to read them normally?

I always used to save my Chat logs because I use IM in the professional environment. Now I find that I can’t save chat logs anymore. That option is gone. Is there any workaround or hidden preference to enable saving chat logs again?

I seem to be having an issue with my iPhone 11 Pro. Videos sent from my Mac to iMessage chats look like garbage (tiny, really low-rezzed down, pixellated when viewed) on my phone. Videos sent from my phone look like garbage on my Mac in the same chat thread. Videos sent from other people’s phones look like garbage on my phone, but fine on the Mac in the same chat, and fine on other people’s phones (no iPhone 11s though) in the same chat. It’s definitely not a storage issue - I have several hundred GB free. The low-res image setting in Messages is off. Update: I have isolated this to only happening in group chats. Regular 1:1 message threads seem to have fine videos. Has anyone else seen this?

My Apple Messages has way, way too many people in it. I'd like to remove the chat sessions that have been dead for more than 6 months. It seems that I should be able to do this by deleting records from $HOME/Library/Messages.chat.db, an SQLite3 database, but I haven't figured out how the database works. Has anyone created a program to prune this?

In, iMessage when other party types, we see three dots on our end. 1. How is this implemented? 1a) Is this also implemented using Apple Push Notification Service ? 2. I see same option in few other web chat applications. How is it done outside iMessage?

I'm looking to use the command line (Terminal or iTerm2) to export a long conversation to PDF or HTML in monthly chunks. I want to be able to do this regularly so I can make a regular backup and maybe I can find a nice pretty way to display it on the web or via Google Drive or Dropbox. Who knows.. If I have to write some code to do that, I think I can handle it. According to my research, those chat messages are stored as an SQLite database hidden somewhere in the application data directories for the 'Messages' application. Are there any existing tools for this? I suspect because the SQLite method I mentioned is not an "official" way to access that data, it's likely not published on the web anywhere? I've tried some of the commercial products but they are okay at best. Would like to get to the raw data if I can. Out of the commercial projects I've tried: * iExplorer * PhoneView * Decipher TextMessage At this point I tried using iExplorer to export one huge PDF (2.5k pages). What I would ideally want (and what this question is asking for) is to be able to run a regular job via Terminal to update the HTML or PDF representation of the chat log. UPDATE: For anyone else who has the same problem, I've been using iExplorer which apparently does work it just takes FOREVER because my file is huge. I want something that's iterative so I can run this process on a regular basis.

iMessage has a Bonjour option but there isn't any explanation on what this all is about. So what can I do with this?

Is there a way to print or reactivate text messages that have been archived? I can view the archived messages just fine in the ~/Library/Containers/com.apple.iChat/Data/Library/Messages directory.

***EDIT: Perhaps a better way to say all of the below, is this: Is there a way to restore my Message (iChat) history onto my iMac, from my iCloud backup? All of my iDevices have the complete chat history, so this seems reasonable.*** Original post follows... My system got into a very weird state today, so I decided the best option was to restore to a new HD from a Time Machine backup. The last backup I had was from a month ago, but it restored fine. Now I have my new HD with 1-month old data, and my old HD with current data that I want to recover parts of. I found today's messages transcripts in ~/Library/Messages/Archive and I can view them just fine. But even after I added today's folder to my live Archive folder on the boot drive, Messages will not see the current chats at all. How can I "import" or "merge" or otherwise get my latest Messages transcripts to be blended in with the old ones?

I've been trying to set up iChat screen sharing between an iBook G4 and my MacBook (both running the latest Leopard) for some time now without success. iChat has been configured on both computers with Jabber connecting to GChat (both accounts are GMail addresses). I've been able to get it to work when both computers were on the same network, but I get this message when I try to connect over the Internet: Thanks, iChat. That's a lot of help. I do get this line in Console.app if it helps any: No iChat delegate set for vcc:initiateConferenceCompletedForParty: Googling for this phrase yields only a handful of posts on the Apple forums, none of which are very helpful in addressing this problem. Is this a firewall/router issue? Is there a workaround? Oh, and I do know that Skype now supports screen sharing on Macs, and I'm going to attempt to use it as soon as I can talk my grandmother through installing it (no easy feat, so I'd much rather have a fix for iChat)

The new **Messages** beta app (based on iChat) is stuck with one incoming message. Can I somehow reset the badge?

After upgradering to Mavericks, I have been bombarded repeatedly with the following prompt: > Messages agent wants to use your confidential information stored in “” in your keychain > [Allow] [Always allow] [Deny] No matter how many times each option is used, the popup appears again after a very short while (usually less than 15 seconds). Erasing the Messages.app/iChat-related preference files from ~/Library/Preferences/ did *not* work.