Skype and Facebook Messenger transcript

[hamzaisha 7]

What is the best and easiest way to get the Skype and Facebook messenger history of calls and messages?

[Amhara 460]

For the Facebook messages, you can get a screen shot of the quantity of messages you two sent between each other. Now, the messenger app is logging the time duration of phone calls. Take a screen shot of those calls on your phone if you can and print a few of those. The quantity of messages shows that you two contact each other often and is fast for the CO to look at. We included some screen shots of our lovey-dovie messages too as well as our messages to each other's family.

For Skype, I copied and pasted the call logs, but I noticed the mobile app and laptop interface did not have merge the two calls. So if I made a call from the laptop, then a different call on the phone, I had to capture both of them. I pasted the calls to a Word document. I highlighted the longest calls and made the pages double-sided. (They didn't take our Skype logs at the Kabul embassy.)

To get the number of messages screen shot:

When I log in to the full Facebook site (laptop or desktop), and I try to chat with my fiance, a pop up box come up at the bottom so I can keep fooling with Facebook as I chat. That's not the box you want. Instead, you go to the top, click on the message bubble icon where all your messages will come in a drop down menu. At the bottom of this menu, you will see a link that says, "Show All Messages". Click that and your messages will be the main screen. Click on your love's messages, and the latest messages between you two should be in the center of the page. This is the part you will want to screen print, but you aren't done yet.

To get the message quantity, scoll up. Facebook should let you do so to a certain point. I will stop and ask you if you want to load more. This is the page you want - don't do anything yet. You may already know how to screen print, but you press "Crtl" and "PrtScn" buttons on your keyboard at the same time. The Crtl (control) button is on the bottom left and the PrtScn (screen print) is on the top right before the 10 key number pad. Laptops may have smaller keyboards, but they should still be on the same locations. (Sorry if this was too much detail, but I am not sure what your set up looks like.)

So, now your computer has copied the screen, you can paste it to a Word document and you are good! I printed one side with the unmodified screen print, then another side with a cropped screen print. This way the ads and margins were removed and I could make the chat part and number count more obvious. I didn't want to get a CO that couldn't see so well! I wanted to make it as easy as possible for the CO!

[hamzaisha 7]

Thank you for such an awesome tip. I have individual screen shots of a few messages from fb messenger, a few call records from hangouts dialer from which I call my fiance directly on his phone number. I just downloaded the past 3 months of skype call record with the help of a software.

Even though I have the Skype setting on forever history but it only shows 3 months. I am going to ask my fiance if his skype record might show atleast a full year.

How much of the record if good enough to take with me to the interview? Some people have said they took 700 - 1000 pages of their chat transcripts to the interview. It sounds a bit too much to me.

Edited August 31, 2015 by hamzaisha

[Amhara 460]

Yeah, 700-1,000 pages is way too much! There's no way a CO can get through all that!

I think a good sample is sufficient. They are looking for proof of ongoing relationship - not necessarily love. But show them things that have dates and long duration of calls.

In the petition, I already sent proof of ongoing relationship. This was one screen print that showed how many messages between us as of March 18th. I also included the calling card logs. I sent my guy about 24 screen shots of the lovey messages and he printed them all out. I included two more screen shots of the call quantities. One for the middle of May and one for the end of May. This way, they had a time frame and could see the messages increase over time.

The CO may not have too much time to look at your evidence, so make it as easy as possible. They probably already looked at everything in your case file too. I would say keep your ongoing relationship papers down to 20-25 pages. Keep it meaningful; I would skip emoticon messages. Try to give them a view of different points in time, such as current, a few months ago, maybe a few past that. I couldn't go any farther than 3 months on Facebook messages, but try to give them from something in August, July, June months.

[hamzaisha 7]

That sounds good enough. The problem with most of these programs is that you can't go back more than 3 months or so. So I guess I will stick with chats and call logs from June. I have emails and some ecards etc. from last year or more. My fiance sent me money a few times on different occasion so I can buy a gift for myself, showing the PayPal receipt for that should be OK? I sent him gifts from ebay and flowers on his birthday from a website so I will use those receipts.

[Amhara 460]

Yeah, send those too. I didn't include any money transfer receipts, but I did include receipts for a ring and language lessons I bought to learn his native language. I took pictures of gifts he bought me, but they didn't accept our photos. The CO didn't get aggressive in asking questions; just some on how we met.

[Pythos1 24]

I just took a look at my fb messenger message list and scrolled up. When I got to the top, it said "loading older messages (23,894)" or something like that, then loaded more messages. There would be no time available for me to screen grab before the next batch of older messages loaded up. And, being more capable with an 8-Track tape player than with a computer, what is the archive function with facebook messages?

[Amhara 460]

I just took a look at my fb messenger message list and scrolled up. When I got to the top, it said "loading older messages (23,894)" or something like that, then loaded more messages. There would be no time available for me to screen grab before the next batch of older messages loaded up. And, being more capable with an 8-Track tape player than with a computer, what is the archive function with Facebook messages?

LOL! Oh, Pythos! Too funny!

Archive is a fancy way to say DELETE. Nothing disappears on Facebook - so the legend goes.

Yeah, you need to be a little fast with getting the screen shot of the message count. However, try scrolling up again. After a certain point, it will require you to click on the message count to load the older messages. (It's like the message log is getting lazy.) Then it should give you more time to take a screen shot. Be patient, it may take another 10 minutes of scrolling to get there, but eventually, it makes you click the link.

[Pythos1 24]

Then it's a good thing that after I "archived" it (which I thought was putting it in a better filing cabinet and not the circular one) that I "unarchived" it. I need that stuff. This is why I don't clean up my computer files. I had an old computer that needed room in the hard drive for more stuff, so I was trying to get rid of stuff I didn't use. I deleted a stupid-sounding file name with almost no storage space used up, and my computer became an expensive doorjamb. Never again, I said.

[Amhara 460]

...that day turndfioeup.exe turned out to be a major hard drive file. I hear ya!

[hamzaisha 7]

I scrolled back to where it says so and so more messages but didnt scroll completely up. After that I turned off the internet and then scrolled back up and took a screen shot.

[Amhara 460]

I scrolled back to where it says so and so more messages but didn't scroll completely up. After that I turned off the internet and then scrolled back up and took a screen shot.

That's a smart idea!

[gsma 8]

For Skype call history, on a Mac at least, there is a way to show pretty much the last years worth of information. This includes all images, calls, failed calls, text messages, etc etc. I think you can get this by clicking on the V looking icon and choosing something about backwards. From this, you can copy ALL this information to a file. This file may be massive and include a ton of information that isn't relevant. I opened a mac terminal and did a 'cat reallylongfile.txt | grep ....' and searched for anything that was like 'Call ' and contained the words seconds... it filtered out everything.

(You can be really fun and get the hours and minutes from this and put them into a spreadsheet program to see how much you've called.. )

As for messages, I'd just use a few loving messages from various points.