a short script to demonstrate pulling down your google talk history

chatlogs

#!/usr/bin/env python

# Download your chat history
# http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8146970/accessing-chat-folder-in-python-using-imaplib

import imaplib

conn = imaplib.IMAP4_SSL("imap.gmail.com", 993)
conn.login("example@gmail.com", "password")
lb_list = conn.list()
print lb_list

conn.select("[Gmail]/Chats", True)
conn.search(None, '(ALL)')
resp, data = conn.fetch('1:*', '(RFC822)')
with open('chats.log', 'w') as f:
    f.write(data)

# inspect 'em

import email
from xml.etree import cElementTree as ET
import quopri

with open('chats.log') as f:
    raw_chats = eval(f.readline())

    chats = []
    for i, val in enumerate(raw_chats):
        if i % 2 == 1:
            continue

        em = email.message_from_string(val[1])
        em1 = em.get_payload()[0]
        em2 = em.get_payload()[1]
        xmpp = quopri.decodestring(em1.get_payload())
        xm = ET.fromstring(xmpp)
        for child in xm.getchildren():
            print 'from:\t', child.attrib['from'], '\tto:\t', child.attrib['to']
            if child.text:
                print '\t', child.text
            for child2 in child.getchildren():
                if child2.text:
                    print '\t\t', child2.text
        chats.append(xm)