Steam offers plenty of features that allow users to get social with their friends. These built-in options are very useful particularly when it comes to playing multiplayer games.
You can chat with your friends and team members directly from the game client or in-game thanks to the Overlay feature.
There are many questions about Steam’s chat feature and the chat history in particular. In this guide, we’ll focus on one of the most common questions that both new and advanced users may have.
How can I check Steam chat history? You can’t check Steam’s full chat history. This is because Steam does not save your chat history therefore you can’t retrieve it from anywhere. However, Steam does recover the last lines of chat when you reopen a previous chat.
So, if you unfriend somebody, there is no way to recover your shared chat history.
As you already know, Steam is plagued by a huge number of scammers. The fact that the platform does not store your chat history is a major security advantage. Even if scammers gain access to some of your most recent chat messages, they don’t have access to your chat history because it does not exist.
Unfortunately, there have been countless cases where scammers hacked the accounts of Steam users and blocked them.
Let’s talk more about Steam chat
How long does Steam store chat logs? Steam saves only your most recent chat conversation for about two weeks if you never chat with that person again. But the saved chat lines are automatically removed the next time you chat with the same user again.
Do Steam messages disappear? Steam chat messages disappear and get replaced with new messages after you send the next message. As a result, there are very few previous chat messages available.
Can you clear Steam chat history? There is no built-in option to clear Steam chat history. As a matter of fact, there is no need for such an option since Steam does not store your chat history.
Steam Users Would Like to Save Their Chat History
Steam users have been requesting Valve to add chat history support for years. They suggested the company should implement a second-password system for accessing the chat history.
But we don’t think the platform will add chat history support any time soon.
Use the Steam mobile app to access recent chat history
As a workaround — well, kind of — you can use the Steam mobile app to see parts of your recent chat history. Don’t expect to get access to the full chat log, the app saves only recent chat lines from (a couple of days).
And now you know.