Transfer .Mac iChat account buddy lists to AIM accounts

Sep 24, '07 07:30:00AM

Contributed by: robg

While testing some of the early IM apps on the iPhone -- via the Installer.app beta -- I had a need to transfer my .Mac buddy list to an AIM account, as neither of the early IM apps supported .Mac accounts. (This weekend, however, Apollo 1.0 was released with full support for .Mac accounts.).

In looking for a way to copy my buddy list to my AIM account, iChat was out, as it lacks any sort of export feature. AIM for the Mac, however, does have an export function, so the solution turned out to be pretty simple. I downloaded and installed AIM, and then logged in using my .Mac ID. I then chose File -> Export, and clicked the Export Options button on the dialog that appeared. On the Options screen, I unchecked everything except Buddy List and clicked OK (to return to the Export dialog). I then named the file and saved it to the Desktop, and logged out of my .Mac account.

For the final step, I logged into AIM again, this time using my AIM account. I then used File -> Import and pointed it at the just-exported file, and everything came in perfectly. Now that Apollo IM is available, I probably won't need this solution any longer, but I thought I might as well document it here.

Comments (2)


Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20070921105550593