Can someone please tell me what I need in order to be able to open and read a .dat file? I am trying to read messenger archives and they are .dat and nothing I have will open them.

I would think the Messenger program should be able to read them. From: http://filext.com/detaillist.php?extdetail=dat Quote: Can be just about anything: text, graphic, or general binary data. There is no specific structure for a .DAT file. You can use an editor like EditPad Pro to look inside a .DAT file and possible determine its contents and relationship with a program. End Quote Also, if you have it, QuickView can read them but it may not be worth looking at it with it. You will have to scroll many, many pages to get past the coding before you see any text. QuickView, if you have it, can be found by right clicking on the .dat file and selecting "Quick View" or "Quick View Plus". HTH Bryan

Thank you kindly Bryan, I know how to access them 'inside' Yahoo! I was actually saving them to a disk and wanting to access them 'outside' of Yahoo! I figured it out tho.

how did you read yahoo .dat files outside of yahoo. I tried that editpad pro, but all i saw was jibberish.

I personally use Super WinSpy. It's great for reading .DAT files. http://www.acesoft.net/winspy/ Click on download, then select the 3rd option down that is called WinSpy, it's free, the 1st 2 aren't. It also reads the INDEX.DAT files in the temporary internet files incase you want to know what sites were visited on your computer. Faris,