Abstract: Participants in a chat session can control the archiving of chat messages in the chat session. Participants in a chat session send and receive a first set of chat messages, which are archived. A command to deactivate archiving is made by one of the participants. Messages in the chat session that are sent and received subsequent to the command to deactivate archiving are not archived. Archiving may be reactivated and messages subsequent to the command to reactivate archiving are archived.

Abstract: Email and chat messages may be displayed as part of the same conversation, in an integrated conversation view. The conversation view would include items corresponding to email messages that are part of the conversation and chat messages that are part of the conversation. A user may reply to an email message in the conversation by chat.

Abstract: In a method of graphically representing users of an integrated email and instant messaging (IM) system, the system allows a second user to associate a graphical user identifier with a first user and suggests the graphical user identifier to the first user. The first user may accept or reject the graphical user identifier. If the first user accepts the graphical user identifier, the system displays the graphical user identifier to a third user when the third user accesses any email or IM message associated with the first user. The third user can override the graphical user identifier of the first user with a different graphical user identifier including a new one uploaded into the system by the third user.