Saving messages in Skype and other instant messaging apps

Hi everybody. I was just wondering if anybody could tell me how I can save a copy of messages between my girlfriend and I that are on my phone. We mainly use an app called ICQ to message each other, but send the odd message on Skype and hangouts too. Is there any way that I can save our messages? I need to start saving them as evidence of an ongoing relationship for when we apply for a visa for her. Or if there's a different messaging app that anybody knows of that we can use that allows messages to be saved then we can start using that. Any help is greatly appreciated

Thanks

Skype is always a good one to use, you have the option of saving your messages, I believe you can save your messages at Facebook too. It is important and you are being wise by saving your messages. Remember to save emails between you too, anything that shows you have a sustaining and ongoing relationship. If you send messages on your mobile and are on contract you can print your monthly bills off too which will show you communicating with each other.

Others here will tell you of other Apps they use I'm sure.

Good luck Piglet303

Hi Timmers, thanks for your reply. We only ever use VoIP apps to call and message each other do they won't show up on any phone bill. And if there's a way to save messages on the Skype app then please tell me how. I don't use Skype on a computer, just on my phone.

Here is the page on ICQ chat history:
http://download.icq.com/download/icq/features/archive/en
Here is the page on Skype history:
https://support.skype.com/en/faq/FA3391/viewing-my-skype-history-windows-desktop

If you log in to Skype on your laptop, sometimes your old phone chat will come up on there.

I remember that this sometimes happened, but not always.

Try it though. If it does you can just copy and paste into Word.

Thanks guys. I'm sure I tried a while back to log into Skype on a desktop, but my messages weren't there. I'll have another look, cos I'm not sure I've got "forever" selected in the keep history section. Aposhark, that link for ICQ is just taking me to the playstore to download it. I think maybe I need to look at that link on a desktop? I'll try it. Thanks again.

The ICQ link works on my laptop, Piglet303.
It is years since I used ICQ (I Seek You) but I seem to remember that you have to choose to save the "chat", though.

I use Hangouts for all my messaging to my wife and the chats get save automatically in my Gmail, along with all my emails to her - everything in one place!

That's interesting ... So how did you set things up to do that? I've just looked at my gmail and there's no saved chats between my girlfriend and I in there as far as i can see. So do you have to set something up in hangouts or gmail or both?

By default, Hangouts should archive messages; if not then just enable it from within Hangouts. You can probably also apply a filter to your gmail to label the hangouts appropriately as well (eg 'girlfriend')

How far would you suggest to go when printing off Skype chats. Me and my wife have skyped 2 or 3 times a day for 17 months, we're talking hundreds of pages if i print it all off. I was going to take a page from each month, from the first month separated, to the present. I have to do it for my wife. Her PC broke recently, she now has a notebook, so i believe she cannot access her old history, but i noticed on my Skype chat history it also includes all received calls from her, so that should suffice.

Yes sounds a good idea, evenly spread across the period of communication. I haven't got my laptop to hand but I'd of thought Skype logs were on the cloud these days rather than saved locally, that's what most of the big players do nowadays but as I say i can't confirm that. As you you have her chats too so I'm sure that will suffice.

Skype chat logs are saved on the local PC but before Microsoft acquired the company, those logs were saved on a remote server for upto a month or so and could be accessed and resaved for another month.

If you use a device - a phone or tablet - and type messages to each other they won't be saved unless you have a PC connected to the Internet and you are also logged-in to Skype on that PC. You can then use your mobile device to conduct the conversation which will be mirrored and saved on the PC.

We were discussing saving messages a while back and someone said that you can save messages from Facebook, who I don't know

I do not have a Facebook account so I cannot clarify this.

Hi, I'm not on Facebook, and to be honest I do have a bit of an aversion to it!

We used some Facebook screenshots and chat too. I know some people have a thing against it, but if you need evidence of chat then it's est to just go with what enables you to do that.