While that may not be a problem if you are the only account user, it can be one if the email account is shared. This can be the case if it is a company or family account. Plus you need to be aware that even if you are the only account user, this may not be the case for your chat partner’s account.

Google users have two options to modify the chat history settings. The first option is to completely disable Google Chat history. This basically means that chats will not be recorded, so that they cannot be searched or accessed after the session closes.

Gmail users find the option to never save chat history here. You can also open your Gmail homepage manually, click on the Settings icon on the right of your profile photo, select Mail Settings from the context menu and switch there to the Chat tab.

Locate My Chat History there. To disable chat history select Never save chat history, to enable it again select Save chat history instead.

• Save chat history. – Your chats will be saved under “Chats” in your Google Mail account, and you can search for them later. You can always go “off the record.”
• Never save chat history. – Your chats will never be saved or searchable in your Google Mail account.

Sometimes though you may only want to block the chat history of a particular contact, or to delete previous chat recordings.

To find all chat sessions that Google has recorded enter in:chat into the Search Mail field on Google Mail. This displays a list of all chat sessions with options to delete them.

The second option that you have is to go off the record during chats. Click on the down arrow icon on the right side of the chat header and select Go off the record from the context menu. You will get a message stating that you are now off the record. Chats with the particular users are no longer saved in your Gmail account or the the chat partner’s account (but may be if either one uses a desktop or third party app).

And that’s all there is to is. This guide explained how to enable or disable the Google chat history completely or on a per-contact level. (via)

Google Talk is not only used by individuals who want to chat with their family, friends and relatives but also by businesses who use it to communicate with customers and for internal support. One of the problems that users do experience is that there is not a way to let the user initiating the communication know that they are not available at that time.

Enter Google Talk Autoreply; A lightweight Open-Source computer program that can be used to configure auto-replies that notify the Google Talk user that the person is currently not in the place to answer.

The message that is automatically posted whenever the Google Talk Autoreply client is running can be configured individually. This message is then send to users who try to contact the user running Google Talk Autoreply.

Security conscious users might want to analyze the source code as a Google account username and password have to be supplied. Google Talk Autoreply is available at the project’s homepage at Codeplex.