This article also applies to the following legacy products:
Pro | Architectural | Suite
QUESTION
The Chief Architect Technical Support team requested that I send in the program's Message Log file. How do I find this file?
ANSWER
The Message Log for Chief Architect software contains information that can help Chief Architect Technical Support determine the cause of problems experienced within the software. In this article, we will show you how to access this log file.
To retrieve the Message Log in Chief Architect X17, Home Designer 2026, and newer versions
- With the program open, navigate to Help> Export Logs.

- In the dialog that appears, choose an easy to find location to save the log files to, such as your Desktop, then click Select Folder.
- An Information dialog will display with the location the logs have been saved to; click Open Location or OK.

- Attach the compressed (zipped) folder to a support case in the Technical Support Center.
To locate the Message Log in Chief Architect X16, Home Designer 2025, and prior versions
- The instructions in this step will vary based on the operating system you're using:
- On Windows, press the Windows
key and the letter R at the same time, type %localappdata%
in the dialog that appears, then press OK.

- On macOS, select Go> Go to folder using Finder, type
~/Library/Application Support
, then press Return or Go.
- This will open a new File Explorer or Finder window on your system. Open the file folder corresponding to your product, and inside you will see a text file named Message Log.txt.
- Open the Message Log and select File> Save As from the menu, then save a copy of the log to your Desktop.
- The file can now be attached to a support case in the Technical Support Center.
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