Remove smileys in messenger program (iChat for mac)

It has long annoyed me that there is no intuitive, straightforward way to disable smileys in chat programs.

Today I found that these two commands can do it for iChat for mac:

$ cd /Applications/iChat.app/Contents/Resources/English.lproj/
$ mv SmileyTable.plist SmileyTable.plist.bak

Restart iChat. (tip from MacOSXhints.com: Disable graphical smileys in iChat 3.0 but it works for me on Mac OS X 10.5.8 with iChat 4.0.8 (619).

Now my conversations look like this:
ichat-messenger-with-smileys-disabled

Which reminds me that I better soon write a short article on the problem of having the wrong and obtrusive defaults in your applications.

6 Responses to “Remove smileys in messenger program (iChat for mac)”

  1. quitar granos Says:

    that’s perfect! i didnt know how to remove the smileys, i really appreciate your post! it drives me crazy when people put more smileys than words in messenger, thanks for the solution!

  2. DavidR Says:

    Would be nice if they could be turned off in all email programs too.

    A friend had great difficulties executing a couple of command lines sent by a software provider, which contained : followed by ( or some similar combination interpreted by his mail reader as a smiley…

  3. Michiel Van Kets Says:

    Ok, I understand that in some instances they are just not required but there are those that genuinely love them and they can give a little levity to a boring day. But now there are ways to do it for those who can’t bear a smile! Don’t worry I wouldn’t even dream of trying to leave one here!

  4. Blane Says:

    I personally find the smileys a little annoying as well maybe because they are used so liberally. Now I know how to disable them on Yahoo and Ichat. How about on ICQ? Thanks for the useful information.

  5. seo solutions Says:

    thanks for this great and informative post i appreciate it thanks for sharing i learn something new today. i will use what i learn today

  6. Daniel Says:

    This is why I like skype. It’s really simple to turn off smileys in Skype =D