Gmail chat liberated: Read your chat logs in your email client via IMAP

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0p_jUltvwng]

As you know, Google Takeout, a recently introduced service, allows you to export your data from the Google cloud. For example, you can download an archive from Google Buzz, Picasa Web Albums, Contacts and Circles and Google Profile – even Google Voice. Beginning today, it is possible to pull your Gmail chats to an email client such as Thunderbird, via IMAP protocol.

Even though Gmail’s been working with your local email client via IMAP for ages, you were not able to retrieve chat logs – although they appear as email messages under the Chat label in the lefthand side of the web interface. Per Google’s blog post, recorded chat logs can now be downloaded to your local email client provided it’s configured to use IMAP. You only have to tick the “Show in IMAP” checkbox for Chats in the Labels tab of your Gmail settings. A step-by-step instructions in the video above.