The Yahoo Messenger Archive Decoder has been created for exactly that purpose. The program can read Yahoo Messenger dat files and convert their content to txt or rtf file formats so that they can be accessed directly without needing the messenger at all. The user does need to locate the data file manually using the built in file browser.

Pretty much everything else is handled by the application afterwards. It will try to automatically detect the username using either the file path, file name or Windows Registry. Conversations can be displayed with date, time and username. There is no password needed to display the information.

It is possible to save all dat files of a directory as txt or rtf or only selected ones. The Yahoo Messenger Archive Decoder (via Techie Buzz) is a handy program for users who need to access .dat files without being able to go online or having the password needed to access them.