Email, Messaging, & Video Calls > Email How to Save Your Gmail Chat History Archive your conversations to review any time By Heinz Tschabitscher Heinz Tschabitscher Writer University of Vienna A former freelance contributor who has reviewed hundreds of email programs and services since 1997. lifewire's editorial guidelines Updated on December 16, 2022 Reviewed by Jon Fisher Reviewed by Jon Fisher Wichita Technical Institute Jonathan Fisher is a CompTIA certified technologist with more than 6 years' experience writing for publications like TechNorms and Help Desk Geek. lifewire's editorial guidelines In This Article Expand Jump to a Section How to Toggle Chat History What Happens When I Turn Off Gmail Chat History? How to Archive Gmail Chat Conversations Frequently Asked Questions Trending Videos Close this video player What to Know Select the Chat tab. Choose a conversation, select the person's name at the top, and choose Turn on history.If you see Turn off history instead, chat history is already turned on.In the small chat window, select the three dots > Turn on history. This article explains how to save your Gmail Chat history. How to Turn On Google Chat History Google saves your conversations in Gmail Chats by default. Here's how to turn this feature on and off for inidivdual conversations. In a web browser, go to your Gmail inbox and select the Chat tab. Choose a chat conversation in the left sidebar, then select the person's name at the top to open a dropdown menu. Select Turn on history. If you see Turn off history instead, chat history is already turned on. It should change to Turn off history, indicating that your chat history is being saved. The steps are a little different if you're chatting in the small chat window. To open the conversation in a small chat window, select the Open in Pop-up icon next to the conversation or in the upper-right corner. Select the three dots in the upper-right corner of the chat window. Select Turn on history. If you see Turn off history instead, chat history is already turned on. What Happens When I Turn Off Gmail Chat History? If history is disabled, messages may disappear before the intended recipient reads them. Also, if one party disables the history feature, Google won't save the conversation. However, if a user is accessing the chat through a different client, their client may be able to save the chat history despite disabling the Google Chats history setting. How to Archive Gmail Chat Conversations If you don't want to delete your chats, you can hide them and view them later. Open the chat conversation, select the person's name at the top (or the three-dot menu in the small chat window) and select Hide conversation. The conversation will disappear from your list. When you start a new Gmail Chat conversation, your old chats will still be visible. FAQ What does Idle mean in Google Chat? If you see the Idle icon (an orange bubble) next to a user in Google Chat, it means that they have been inactive for five minutes or longer. Likewise, your status will change to Idle in Google Chat if you don't do anything for five minutes. How do I chat in Google Docs? To chat in Google Docs, share a document with the person you want to chat with, then select the Show Chat icon (the person and the speech bubble) in the upper-right corner of the screen. How do I turn off history in Google Chat? In the chat window, select the person's name or the three-dot menu > Turn Off History. Then, select Delete conversation to permanently delete your chat history. Was this page helpful? Thanks for letting us know! Get the Latest Tech News Delivered Every Day Subscribe Tell us why! Other Not enough details Hard to understand Submit