Chat history

You must be signed in to a Gmail username to use chat history. Also note, chats originating from orkut will not be stored in chat history

Chat history allows you to store the text of your Gmail, iGoogle and download client chats in your Gmail account so you can easily search for them later. You can even respond to these chats like you would to regular Gmail messages.
To access your chat history, click the Chats label in your Gmail account. A list of chats will appear, similar to the way conversations are listed in your inbox. You can forward, label, star, and trash chats just like Gmail messages.
When you search in Gmail, matching chat conversations will show up along with matching email conversations. All chats are labeled Chats and are marked with the chat icon () so you can easily distinguish them from emails.
Chat history is enabled by default for Gmail users, but we know you may want to disable it. You can change your chat history settings at any time. You can also toggle this at an individual contact level by going 'off the record'.