I don’t know about you, but I love iChat. I love it because it’s a video/audio conferencing, OS-integrated, beautifully-looking, full-featured IM application. There’s only one problem with it; iChat only supports AIM, .Mac, and Jabber. To make matters worse, iChat only supports one AIM or .Mac connection, and one Jabber connection. So, if you want to use multiple screen names and services, you’re out of luck - until now.
iChat’s ability to connect to Jabber is going to get us out of this situation. See, Jabber supports a technology called transports. Transports are installed on Jabber servers and act as a relay between you and another IM service. There are transports for everything from AIM to MSN, and even IRC. What’s really going to make things easy for us is transports don’t have to be installed directly on the Jabber server you’re connected to. You can add a transport from any server to your connected server, and it will work just as expected.
Sounds great, right? Well there is only one problem. iChat doesn’t make it easy to do this. In fact, you can’t do it at all using iChat. You can, however, setup transports in another application, and the settings will remain no matter what client you use. So, that’s exactly what we’re going to do.
Step 1: Prepare
The first we need to do is get ourself a copy of Psi. Psi is an open source Jabber client that has everything we need. It’s even cross-platform, so if you want to set this up in Linux or Windows, feel free. After Psi is downloaded, install it so it’s ready for use.
Next, we need to scout out some Jabbers servers which support our needs. If you want to use GTalk, you’re going to absolutely need their Jabber server. Now regardless if you’re using GTalk or not, you’re going to need at least one Jabber server with transports installed. Jabber.org has a handy list of Jabber servers and what transports they support. I personally use jaim.at, since it’s proven to be reliable for me, but feel free to pick any other server of your choice.
Finally, if you want to setup multiple accounts for each IM service, you’re going to need to find an additional server with that transport for each additional account you want to add.
Step 2: Setup
Now that we have our servers, go ahead and launch Psi. The first thing we’ll need to do is add our main server. If you’re going to use GTalk, this has to be their server. If you’re skipping GTalk, this server should be the one which is most reliable. To add GTalk to Psi, follow Google’s instructions. For any other server, I’m going to show you.
From the menu bar, select General and click Account Manager. In the account manager, click on the add button. On this screen, enter in anything you want to call the account, and be sure to check the register new account check box. Now, enter in a user name in the Jabber ID box, and add @[your main Jabber server] to the end of it. Choose a password, and click register. We’re done setting up the account!
Step 3: Transports
Now that the account is setup, it’s time to add the transports. The first thing we need to do is right-click the server in Psi, and set ourself online. Ignore any errors that the Jabber server gives you, unless it says you can’t connect. Now that we’re online we can add transports.
To add transports, right-click the server again, and this time select Service Discovery. If you’re using a regular Jabber server, your transports will appear in the list. If you’re using GTalk, we need to first connect to a server with the transports we require. Simply enter in the server with the transports in the address field and click browse. Now both GTalk and regular Jabber users are in sync.
Find the transport you need, whether it be MSN, Yahoo, etc, and right-click it. From the menu, click register, enter in your information for that service, and click ok. Repeat for each transport you want to setup. Remember, if you want to setup multiple AIM accounts for example, you just have to use a different server for each account. Once you’ve registered all your transports, click close, and close Psi.
Step 4: iChat Setup
We’re on the last step now! Open up iChat and add either your Google Talk account or your Jabber account in iChat’s Jabber settings. If you’re using GTalk, be sure to once again use Google’s special instructions. Now, just set yourself online, and your contacts should appear instantly.
There is only one thing to remember, adding contacts is a little different. You have to use a special format when adding contacts to your list. The format is [contact name]@[protocol].[server]. So, if you wanted to add an AIM contact on the jaim.at server, it would be cavemonkey50@aim.jaim.at. Since MSN contacts use an email address as a screen name, they’re a little different. You just replace the @ with a % in their screen name. So, to add an MSN contact, you would add ron%cavemonkey50.com @msn.jaim.at.
The only thing to remember here is what server has what account. For instance, if you have multiple AIM accounts, just remember screen name one is [buddy]@aim.server1.com and screen name two is [buddy]@aim.server2.com. The rest should be fairly simple.
Conclusions
I hope you were able to follow the instructions. I know they’re a little complex, but once you have everything working, you don’t have to think about it again. In fact, you can uninstall Psi right now; you’ll never need it again.
Finally, there are a couple of things to note. First of all, only chatting will work in any transport-based service. That means file-transfers and video/audio chats are out of the question.
Last but not least, there is a little bonus associated with using Google Talk’s server. If you use Talk within Gmail, you can now chat to other services also. All you have to remember is how to format the contact’s name. Other than that, it will work just as if you are chatting on AIM.
69 Comments
I don’t have a Mac (yet!) but why not just use Adium? Just wondering.
Adium doesn’t support audio/video chats, and is very unstable at file transfers. iChat is more integrated in the OS. For example, the address book shows contact’s status. You can also see contact status within Mail. Finally, iChat has some very slick animations, and is officially supported by AOL, unlike Adium.
Explain a little more? Communicating with other services via GTalk servers?
Yes, the transports for AIM, MSN, Yahoo, etc, get linked on Google’s Jabber server under your account. This Jabber server is used for both the Talk integration within Gmail and in Google’s Desktop client. So, by adding transports, you’re not only giving iChat the ability to chat, anything that uses Talk’s Jabber server can also. You just have to use the special contact formating (cavemonkey50@yahoo.jaim.at) and it works.
I’m not smart enough … or just not familiar enough with IM tools …
I have iChat on a Mac and I want to see my buddies that have googletalk (MSM would be a bonus).
I followed google’s instructions on http://www.google.com/support/talk/bin/answer.py?answer=24076
With two problems
- my server defaulted to gmail.com rather than talk.google.com
- i couldn’t change location to “iChat” … it was locked as my computer name
Anyway, i tried every combination and it didn’t work … well, i say that but what i was expecting was to be able to add my googletalk buddies but that seems limited to AIM or .Mac buddies … if I ignored that and put the googletalk info in after selecting AIM, they do not appear on-line even though they are.
What do you think, should people as ignorant as me just stay off or is there hope?
never mind - sometimes a person just needs to complain first … got it now …
For those who want to use GTalk with iChat, you guys should know that you don’t have to register your transports on the Google server. In fact, you just can’t.
I was able to get everything working with the following steps :
- Get a gmail acocunt
- Get a Mac… (dah…)
- Get a AIM account
- Start iChat and use your AIM account to start (you don’t need to activate it in iChat, you just need one to start with, kinda dumb…)
- Setup your GT account in iChat
- Get Psi and follow the instructions provided here
- When it comes to register transports, use jaim.at as the server to browse for services, NOT talk.google.com.
- Do the rest…
There y’a go. The istructions were not clear enough…
Cheers !
Ok, I have MSN, Yahoo and GTalk set up in IChat. However the problem seems to be that I have to choose only one at at time. Did I do something wrong? Is there a way that I can use all 3 in Jabber at the same time inside iChat? Any help is most appreciated.
Bodie
You can’t use multiple Jabber profiles, but you can add the services to the same Jabber server. Then you only need to connect to one server and you’ll have all three services.
Ronald,
Thanks for the reply. Where do I go to do that? I feel that I should have set that up with PSI. If you could direct me to a link or help me out on how to do that, I would be quite the happy camper. Where do I start?
Bodie
Yes, you have to set that up with Psi. Just follow the same instructions for adding one transport and repeat it over and over again until you have all your transports registered on that one Jabber server. You can as many transports registered to a server as you want. Then connect to that server using iChat.
If I want to use GTalk, MSN and Yahoo, do I use the Google Server or can I use any server? It doesn’t seem to have any other transports available in the google server. Wherever you can point me to have these 3 together would be awesome!
Bodie
When you go to register a transport, there is an address field. That allows you to register a transport from a different server on the current server. Here’s a picture of it:
Look at the address section. Just put any server with transports in there and you can register their transport on the google server.
Ronald,
I sincerely appreciate your help! Thank you! I am doing my best to follow your directions, but again I am stuck. In the above note, you said to “put and server with transports in there and you can register their transport on the Google Server”.
From that, I understand that the server I should be using is the Google one, because that is the one that supports GTalk. I have my MSN and Yahoo set up with njs.netlab.cz.
Within the service discovery window, I should be able to register my njs.netlab.cz transport on the Google Server, am I right so far? If I am understanding you correctly up to this point, and it is the Google Server I should be using and not the njs.netlab.cz server, I am not able to do it because when I click on the server (the only one in the list) the “register” option is grayed out.
Should I be using the other server? I didn’t think so because you had mentioned that you must use Google’s server to access GTalk in iChat. I am sorry for being a pest. Thanks again for your help and patience!
Bodie
No, it’s alright. It’s complex. Basically what I’m talking about is:
- In Psi, connect to GTalk
- Go to the service discovery browser.
- In the address field, change the Google URL with a server with transports (like njs.netlab.cz), then click browse.
- Register your transports just like you did before.
- In iChat, connect to your Gtalk server, you should have everything working now.
I hope this makes sense. If this still is confusing, maybe this article on connecting other services to GTalk will help.
Ronald,
You are the best. Thanks for the step-by-step, it did the trick. I really appreciate you taking the time.
Bodie
Ronald,
Now that I can access the transports within my GTalk account while searching other servers, I see the little MSN, AIM and Yahoo icons, but I cannot register with them. Why?
Ronald,
Did you get the last note of mine? I am still having the same problem. What am I doing wrong? I am so close!!
First of all, sorry for the late response. I’ve been bogged down the last two days with tests. Now regarding your question, have you tried a different server. It might just be that server isn’t letting you register.
Ronald,
No worries, man. You are in no way obliged to answer me, but I really appreciate it.
Here’s the deal. I have tried many different servers and every time I enter one, the transport list comes up with the logos, except they dont have the transport name (”AIM transport”, for example) immediately next to the logo, like they are in your example, and like they were when I first registered with njs.netlab.cz. It’s just the logo, blank space, and then the next colum with the server (aim.ursine.ca).
No matter what server I try, I never get a chance to register, it is always grey. So I tried to NOT use Googles server in PSI, and start another account, just to see. I used the same njs.netlab.cz and when I went to the service discovery, it allowed me to register.
It is like something is blocking me from registering in the google server. My GTalk accounts are happy within iChat, but I can’t seem to register under any other account to bring in the other transports.
I hope that was clear and not too long-winded. What might I be doing wrong?
Bodie
Interesting, transport registering is disabled for me also. I wonder if Google went back to disallowing transports.
So I guess, I am out of luck? It’s not a big deal. Any advice?
Bodie
Sorry, I don’t know what to say about it. I would just wait it out a while and try again. It might just be a glitch with Google’s server.
Thanks, man.
B
Thanks for writing up these instructions! Just to clarify one point — if I want to use my gmail/Google Talk jabber account to communicate with people not using Google’s service, I have to first sign up for an account on their service?
So, I need an AIM account or an MSN Messenger account, etc? That is if those are the services my friends are using?
Thanks again!
hi. i know this is maybe an old question but i can’t seem to add a hotmail contact(my brother). i go into my jabber acct. on ichat, click add buddy, and type his jabber id like this: (username)%hotmail.com@msn.jaim.at (which is the transport i am using-works great for my yahoo just fine thanks!). is this the correct way to type in his hotmail/msn info?
just wondering if i’m doing anything wrong.
thanks so much for the help in advance and wonderful job on the workaround; after a bit of trial and error i was able to successfully add contacts from yahoo to ichat!
No, you’re doing it correctly. If it’s not working, see if your brother has received an authorization request. Yahoo contacts must be approved before you can add them as friends, so that’s probably why it isn’t working.
I cant seem to be able to register with talk.google.com on 5223 or 443 using psi 0.1.0, any ideas? The error is generic stream error.
Try a different Jabber server.
I thought I had to use talk.google.com in order to register gtalk.
Are you trying to register an account on talk.google.com or are you trying to register talk.google.com as a transport on a Jabber server of your choice? If you’re trying to register a Google Talk account, you’re going to have to do that through Google’s site. If you’re trying to register it as a transport and it’s not working, try a different Jabber server that supports transports.
hi i’m sorry to bother you , its just seems that some how i lost a track here you see i followed the instructions here and to add my msn contact list. All I got is a new window with all my contacts in it in a format of (example): miko_le%hotmail.com@msn
and its says underneath it : not authorized.
Now my friend claims that he sees me online but I cant see him.
Can you please tell me what went wrong ???
Thanks alot for all the affords you put to write all of it here.
My problem seems to be that I need to manually “Log on” to each transport service that I have registered on the Google Talk server. When I quit PSI everything is logged off. When I connect to google’s server those transport services don’t log on automatically.
This may be related, but everytime I log on (either iChat or PSI) I have to re-authenticate the transports. In iChat when I log on I get four messages for “Jabber Authorization” .jaim.at wants to add you as a buddy. is aim, icq, msn, and yahoo. In PSI virtually the same thing. What step did I miss? How do I permanently authenticate these transports. How do I get them to log on automatically? It just might be that because they’re not authenticated, they wont’s log on automatically.
Also, I can’t see my Yahoo buddies at “on-line” they can see me and we can chat, but I can never initiate a chat with them because they appear to be offline. MSN and ICQ and AIM don’t have this problem.
In my previous post I had entered (”less than character”, “transport”, “greater than character”) before .jaim.at and before is in the following “s a buddy. is aim” Obviously that got stripped.
Michael, I had this problem with certain Jabber servers. I would look for another server. jaim.at works the best for me, but you might have issues with it.
Before you look for another server, you are indeed right clicking on the server in your Psi buddy list and authorizing it, correct? If not, try that.
I’m using the jaim.at jabber server. If I register my transports (gateways) on the jaim.at server everyhing seems to work, but when I try to get GTalk also by register the transports on Google’s jabber server (talk.google.com) things don’t work. You have to manually log on for each transport.
Unfortunately I don’t know the solution. You’re following everything perfectly and it should work. Don’t fret though, looking at the Psi forums others have recently had issues. The common solution appears to be to change servers, but I see you can’t do that using Google Talk. I would push the issue on their forums and see if someone can come up with a solution.
Easy question…in which application do I add more contacts? Do I add them In iChat or in Psi…or does it matter? I can connect to the Psi servers okay, and then “register” my accounts, but once that’s done ….I’m having problems using iChat to IM users that aren’t on Google (my Psi server is talk.google.com). My friends on Yahoo, for example, don’t even show as being online, but if I open Y-Messenger, they’re there.
I’ve never been able to view the status of a Yahoo member when using Google’s jabber server. Did you try using the server that supports the transport? That works for me. I’m using jaim.at
When i use this for msn on ichat i get Not Authorised on all my contacts and i can’t tell whos on or offline. Help?
Ok, I successfully set this up with my Google account and Jaim.at. I can talk to people on my buddy list. The problem arises when someone NOT on my buddy list tries to IM me. If User123 IMs me and is not on my AIM buddy list, anything User123 says gets echoed back to him from me, without me ever seeing anything.
Any ideas? Thanks for your time!
Steven
K, that was fun. I don’t think you mentioned that changing the default to automatically accepting contacts under Preferences .. Events rids being notified for each.
I think I recall why I left jabber years ago. Transports are unreliable. GTalk and jaim.at seem to be down.
Now how do I undo all this? When I log into Adium, I get all my contacts from every protocol showing with my “GTalk” account and it is really overwhelming. I think I rather just use jabber to support my GTalk contacts and seamlessly integrate them into my Adium contact list using Adium’s API go-between.
Do I just block every jabber contact except GTalk ones from within Adium?
Or do I just log back in with Psi and unregister from every transport?
Chascon
Well, it worked fo a while and I can’t get one now, and registering transports with various servers brings up the faded register button (doesn’t registration).
Could transports be blocking this sort of activity?
After writing my last comment, I thought I still might be able to use this sort of hack on iChat and still go on using Adium by blocking the transports (that show up as contacts) in Adium.
Before someone suggests that this is the course of the dilemma, I think the problem surged prior to me doing this. And I imagine that Adium only locally bocks these transports.
I suppose that the reason I can’t re-register transports again is because GTalk already has the transports enabled.
To remedy this, I guess I could unblock them in Adium and see if this solves the problem and then just block every contact I don’t want interface via jabber. Unless this of course causes the same sort of problems where I can’t reach these contacts Adium blocked contacts in my other clients (where I want accessibility).
Chascon
UPDATE:
>After writing my last comment, I thought I still might be able to use this sort of hack on >iChat and still go on using Adium by blocking the transports (that show up as contacts) in >Adium.
I’ve found this to be true.
>Before someone suggests that this is the course of the dilemma, I think the problem >surged prior to me doing this. And I imagine that Adium only locally bocks these >transports.
I’ve found out that Adium does NOT block locally. And re-enabling tranports via Adium once again makes these accessible in iChat.
>I suppose that the reason I can’t re-register transports again is because GTalk already >has the transports enabled.
I think so.
>To remedy this, I guess I could unblock them in Adium and see if this solves the problem >and then just block every contact I don’t want interface via jabber.
Yes I’m doing this as I write.
> Unless this of course causes the same sort of problems where I can’t reach these >contacts Adium blocked contacts in my other clients (where I want accessibility).
Unfortunately, this is exactly what happens. But can continue to use Adium and Gtalk as long as I block the aim, msn, etc transports that show up as contacts in Adium’s contact list. This blocks them on the network, thus I have to enable them to make them accessible when logging on via iChat (on another computer).
To clarify,
Adium has no way to block locally. Blocking happens on the network scale thus the having to enable a transport via Adium before using iChat.
Disabling tranports allows me continue using GTalk to chat with gmail contacts and Adium’s “API”s.
Chascon
Hi,
I am sorry, but I don´t get the part in Ichat.
The only thing I can see relatively to Jabbers is in Windows - Jabber… But it doesn’t do anything when I click on it. I feel like I missed something, but I read a million times now.
Everything else went perfectly…
Thanks a lot!
i can not acces my g talk .instid of dat g mail is appearing on the page y dis is happening pls do something becoz i cant chat wid my frds .
pls look in2 my problem reply m soon .
I have folllowed all the instructions but all my contacts [they're all msn ones if that makes any difference] are coming up as not authorized. Why? [please help]
(( i know this problem has been mentioned before but then someone else has a problem with google))
sorry to be going on about it but i’ve figured it out now and jus thought I’d say in case any one had the same problem; hold down the ctrl key while left clicking and jus request authorization. embarrasingly simple
Hi,
I am all set except for the last step, where I need to set it up in ichat. When I go to my account options, the server comes out as grey and I cannot register my jabber account. I only want to add in the yahoo service. Augh, I am so close!!! Pls help!!
Thanks so much,
Eden
I was able to get everything working with the following steps :
- Get a gmail acocunt
- Get a Mac… (dah…)
- Get a AIM account
- Start iChat and use your AIM account to start (you don’t need to activate it in iChat, you just need one to start with, kinda dumb…)
- Setup your GT account in iChat
- Get Psi and follow the instructions provided here
- When it comes to register transports, use jaim.at as the server to browse for services, NOT talk.google.com.
- Do the rest…
There y’a go. The istructions were not clear enough…
Cheers !
i just want to ask … does this allow me to “Voice chat” with my friends on yahoo! mssenger if they got it on MS Windows ?
@moeyunaing and @Luc Boudreau -
I found the page same as RICK [post 5 and 6] followed those - No Problem_ I’ve had iChat running Google’s Chat just fine since before this page was created [well over a year] and I have never had to run PSi to get this going_ That is an extra step that is irrelevent in the process_ Maybe it is necessary for connecting MSN ort Yahoo connections - I haven’t tried those - but the G-chat stuff is pretty straight forward_
I added msn transport to my gtalk…..but now i want to remove it. I tried deleting it from my Psi account…but it didnt go away…
I just posted an entry at http://blog.toonetown.com/2007/12/10-steps-to-multi-protocol-ichat.html detailing how you can set up your own jabber server on your mac and use it - rather than trying to fight with the security and stability issues of using one of the public transports.
It works great, and it’s a piece of cake to set up.
Please tell me how to add multiple cotacts at the same time. any sugesstion
Just a question. Do I need a .Mac account to get iChat to work with the other IM?
thanks
Hi! alicia keys as i am
Thank you for describing the procedures in such a detailed way. It is very easy to follow.
But unfortunately, I still cannot login my MSN using iChat after all the procedure described above. The programme just said “Could not connect to Jabber”. This still occurred even I changed the sever twice.
May I ask what should I do?
Try this new online app working in flex . ITS AWESOME
http://airtalkr.com/im/
I have this set up, so I have my iChat and those buddies and I just added the Google Talk and a few new buddies there. But I have 2 separate windows for each. Is there a way to have one buddy list that has my combined accounts?
You can use Chax ! http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/20056
Thx, that was a big help!
the psi won’t download
Thank you for these great instructions! I can now use iChat instead of MSN!!
Hi Everyone,
I am logged into Ichat using my Gtalk id and chatting works fine. What I was looking for is to make audio calls to my frd’s… but it seems its not possible from Ichat to gtalk on windowns and there is no gtalk version available for Mac yet. Tried MSN live messenger and that has the same problem. Yahoo is not help full as most of my frds are using gtalk or msn.
Any suggestion how can make audio calls to work if possible on Ichat using gtalk or MSN live ID or any other messenger tat can help.
Thanks in advance.
There’s no yahoo.jaim.at:-(
OMG. I am so confused. Can someone designate a time to walk me through this via an IM session….or am I a lost cause? I have a my first MacBook (loves it!) and I am trying to setup everything discussed here (My YIM, AIM and GTalk through iChat) Someone please help me. I’m so lost that it’s hurting my spirit
hey
i have msn and google talk and i mostly use google talk more then msn cazz i have more contacs on google talk
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[...] Ronald Heft, un cuate muy leÃÂdo gracias a su cavemonkey50, publica una “guÃÂa” para los amantes del iChat que desean integrarle otras plataformas, especÃÂficamente habla de GTalk, MSN, Yahoo. [...]
[...] Add GTalk, MSN, and Yahoo + Mutiple Accounts to iChat · cavemonkey50.com ichatbe integralva minden ami kellhet, msn, icq, gtalk, stb. (tags: osx msn ichat apps chat adium macosx) [...]
[...] While Googling for a solution I came accross and article on the Cavemonkey blog. The blog’s author, Ronald Heft, Jr. is a reshman at Penn State in Lehigh Valley, PA. He details how to use the Jabber protocol to add Google Talk, MSN, Yahoo and AOL connectivity to iChat. I followed his directions and was soon using iChat to ping my friends. It was when I returned to work the following day and logged into Google Talk that I discovered the brilliance of this solution. All of the IM protocols were bound to my Google Talk account. I could IM my friend on MSN from Google Talk. The magic is that Google Talk is built on the Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) protocol that was developed by the Jabber open-source community. “[Jabber is] an open, secure, ad-free alternative to consumer IM services like AIM, ICQ, MSN, and Yahoo (see the IM quickstart). Under the hood, Jabber is a set of streaming XML protocols and technologies that enable any two entities on the Internet to exchange messages, presence, and other structured information in close to real time.” — jabber.org [...]
[...] Add GTalk, MSN, and Yahoo + Mutiple Accounts to iChat · cavemonkey50.com Not the easiest instructions in the world, but it got the job done. I don’t need more than one chat program. iChat wins hands down. (tags: howto internet mac osx tutorial iChat jabber chat IM apps) [...]
[...] Add GTalk, MSN, and Yahoo + Mutiple Accounts to iChat · cavemonkey50.com Not the easiest instructions in the world, but it got the job done. I don’t need more than one chat program. iChat wins hands down. (tags: howto internet mac osx tutorial iChat jabber chat IM apps) [...]
[...] Googling for a solution I came across and article on t