This document describes the msn client log format. The files are named only with the email address of the sender/receiver; except for the multi-user chats (that is, a chat with more than you and somebody else involved) where the name is composed of 'M::' and then the list of participants (excluding yourself) sorted in alphabetical order, separated by commas (','). The format is very simple: Day/Month/Year HH:MM:SS email ID text where ID is one of: '>>>' if the text is an outgoing message '<<<' if the text is an incoming message '***' if the text refers to a new status '+++' if the text refers to multi-user chats (joining and leaving) and email is the email of the user you send the message to/got a message from, except on the multi-user chat case, where for messages you sent your own email address is displayed. For example: Day/Month/Year HH:MM:SS email *** online Day/Month/Year HH:MM:SS email <<< incoming message Day/Month/Year HH:MM:SS email >>> outgoing message Day/Month/Year HH:MM:SS email *** offline Day/Month/Year HH:MM:SS email +++ join For multi-line messages, the message is indented with a tab, like: Day/Month/Year HH:MM:SS email <<< line1 line2 ... linen In the utils directory you can find the file "msnlog.vim", which is a vim syntax highlighting file for this log format.