I now have iMessage but all my old iChat buddies are gone?

Welcome to Apple Communities

Open Messages > Preferences > Accounts and tick this

try going into the windows menu and choose the correct buddies list 🙂

No problem 🙂

you solved rodeheaver's issue, what about this: Just had a new hard drive installed in my Macbook Pro. Now iMeassges does NOT communicate with prior iChat buddy, and I was communicating with her (my iMessage to her iChat) before the hard drive was replaced.

When I go to the Buddies tab, nothing is highlighted. Help!

Mike

Hi,

In Messages > Preferences> Accounts have you added to services (IDs and Screen Names) that you were using before ?

By default there is an Bonjour Account and the iMessages account.

Neither can be deleted but both can be unticked in the "enable the account" box (the Bonjour one is inactive by default).

The iMessages one needs an Apple ID obviously.

iMessages is a separate service to AIM, Yahoo and Jabber.

You can activate some IDs and Screen Names if they happen to be IDs already in System Preferences > Mail, Contact and Calendars, when you enable them for Messages.

Or you can Add old iChat details to the Messages app directly.

AIM uses the AOL tag now. Jabber are added under "other" except for Google that has it's own option.

9:22 pm Thursday; March 20, 2014

Thanks for the reply. I know that you can help.

I do NOT know what account I used before. But I am getting a message that the person on iChat I am trying to contact – who I was able to chat with through my messages before I got my new hard drive – "is notregistered with iMessage." Would that still be in account issue for me? In that regard, I have activated each account that was listed in my Preferences, as well as added new ones. In each count – Yahoo, AIM, my work email address, my personal email address, in Bonjour, but I keep getting that same message – that the person I was chatting with "is notregistered with iMessage."

I do not have a tab for Preferences > Mail, Contact and Calendars. In Peferences, I have tabs for General, Accounts, Messages, Alerts, and Audio/ Video.

I'm sorry, I do not know what the last paragraph means.

Mike

Hi,

In Mavericks (OS X 10.9.x) the System Preferences pane that was the Mail, Contacts and Calendars is now the Internet Accounts pane. EDIT On Re-reading I see you were looking in the wrong place.

Just to be really clear:-

The App is called Messages and one of the account (that was added in Mountain Lion) is the iMessages account - which is/was a new service started by Apple for the iPhones and other iOS devices than added (effectively) to iChat to create the Messages app.

However the iMessages account cannot chat to any account that could be used in iChat.

Their ID or Screen Name if you can remember it may give clues.

Older AIM Names tend to be User Name parts of possible longer emails.

Lets say they had AOL as their ISP at one time and their account details would have been Buddy57@AOL.com The AOL service would allow them to use the Aol Instant Messenger service with just the Buddy57 bit.

A Google Mail ID would mean you either used Google yourself or you had Jabber account somewhere that could communicate with other Jabber accounts.

A Facebook.chat ID would have also been a Jabber ID.

Also Apple IDs ending in @mac.com and iCloud issued @me.com and @icloud.com can also be vaild AIM Screen names (generally AIM's own names have no email Suffix (the @AOL.com or sometimes @AIM.com bit) but other people like Apple have aggreeements to use their emails. This includes some ISPs in the United States).

If you only started using the app in Messages in Mountain Lion then it possible that you may have used Yahoo ID (Only ones registered at Yahoo work in iChat 6 or Messages)

The Yahoo option was only added to iChat at the last version in Lion (iChat 6) but is present is the Messages versions since.

If you have managed to sync back your Address Book/Contacts App to your current Hard drive then you may have their details in their Address Card.

Also if you managed to get the Mac User Account info from the Old Drive then your Keychain may also list the accounts you used in the earlier Messages version.

7:55 pm Friday; March 21, 2014

Thanks again. I am awaiting my iChat buddy to respond to a chat that I sent to an AIM account.

BTW, I have Mavericks 10.8.5.

I will provide you with an update soon.

Thank you again,

Mike

Hi,

BTW, it is either Mountain Lion at 10.8.5 or your have Mavericks at OS X 10.9.something.

7:07 pm Saturday; March 22, 2014

h

ralph,

it works! thank you.

This solved my question

Mike

PS did i correctly give you the points for helping or is that another issue I need to resolve?

Hi,

The coloured Star for Helpful Points and the Green tick for "Solved" can only be awarded by the poster to the Original Question.

So rodeheaver Awarded this to Kenny Kaboom early in the thread.

Thanks for you comments though.

8:50 pm Sunday; March 23, 2014