Why would you want to download them in the first place?

For easy reference, for important discussions, for links, for interesting language points because sometimes there's a funny thread, etc.

Well that is what the logs are for. You better safe a permalink then as a browser bookmark

If you want to download the transcript, as what do you want to download it? An Excel sheet? HTML? Something else? If you take a busy room, for example CharCoal HQ, I expect the full transcript to be multiple megabytes and takes a 6 to 8 days to scrape (if that would be the route to implement this for you). Does that fit your expectation? I'm asking because it is not trivial to make it "easy".

If the method you're wanting to use is taking screenshots, then it's probably better to use the capabilities of the browser to take a screenshot of the full page, rather than multiple screenshots using an external application. Both Chrome and Firefox have the capability of creating screenshots of the full page, with some limitations (e.g. the default limit in Firefox is a max of 10,000x10,000 pixels).

As rene has stated, there's not enough information in your question here to give you a good response. As far as I know, there is no "easy" way to do this. However, it's certainly possible to obtain all of the messages from a single room through the use of the API mentioned in one of the posts you've already linked. I know this, because I've done it on a few occasions for all the messages in SOCVR.

SOCVR's Archiver has code which will download all messages in the room it's running, if told to do so. It can also display those messages in a popup (displaying all messages would require some minor code changes), but browsers really aren't capable of displaying that large of a page. Browsers become not that usable at 10k or 20k messages being displayed, let alone the millions of messages which a room might contain. That's one of the reasons that most websites paginate results.

@Makyen Where did I mention millions of messages? If someone can explain how I can take a screenshot of an entire page that would already be something. I did it once with long posts on Meta but I don't remember how I did it.

@rene I don't want to download an entire chat transcription just two, three or four pages at the most. People talking about API, and SOCVR which I don't know how they work, is not terribly helpful.

As to telling you how to take a screenshot, I'm sure we're happy to do that. However, it would help to know which browser you prefer to use, so we could tailor any response to what you're comfortable using. Personally, I use Firefox, which after clicking F12 to open the Developer Tools, you can press F1 to go to the Developer Tools settings. Under the heading "Available Toolbox Buttons", check "Take screenshot of the entire page", which makes a camera icon appear in the Dev Tools topbar. Click that icon to take a screenshot. There are a couple of additional options under "Screenshot Behavior".

I mention "millions of messages", because your question doesn't describe or constrain what you are wanting to do. Thus, we have to guess at what you might want, which includes the possibility that you might want to "download chat transcriptions" of everything which went on in a room. We're not trying to be obtuse. In fact, we're trying to be helpful, but our "normal" guessing is usually more expansive, rather than assuming you have a narrow requirement.

For more detailed instructions on taking screenshots, or instructions for other browsers, searching for "[browser] take screenshot of entire page" in your favorite search engine should provide you with detailed instructions for the browser you prefer to use. There are no generic instructions which work for all browsers, so for us to provide that information to you, we would need to know at least which browser you want to use.

I forgot to mention for Firefox screenshots: These are automatically stored to your download folder and given a name with the date and time. If you don't know where that folder/directory is, you can get to that folder by clicking on the downloads icon in the browser topbar (appears after you take a screenshot; shortcut is Ctrl-J). Either of those two actions will display a popup (different popups for the two actions) which will show you a folder icon for each download/screenshot, which you can then click to open your system's default file manipulation tool in that folder/directory.

As mentioned, by default Firefox screenshots are limited to 10,000x10,000 pixels. It's not too difficult to increase that to 32kx32k, but does require modifying Firefox, which is probably beyond what you want to do.

@Makyen thanks maybe post an answer? I've edited to include computer specifics (is that the right term?)

You do know the conversation feature: chat.meta.stackexchange.com/rooms/info/89/… ?

This is the Chrome instruction for the same approach @Makyen described for Firefox. The option in chrome is now under the dev console top right menu called Run Command, then type/search for capture. This is what the result will look like: i.stack.imgur.com/Qulex.png

@rene you mean bookmarking? Yes, I only discovered it yesterday but I would like to be able refer back to a conversation without having to be logged on. What happens if someone, e.g a community manager, deletes a chat room? Does bookmarking preserve the messages?

Bookmarking doesn't solve or prevent deleting so if that is a key factor then bookmarking is not going to cut it. Thanks for checking.

@rene thanks for the instructions. I'll give it a go during the day. It will be screenshots but at least it will be fewer images than what I am doing now.

I know both Makyen and myself are hammering you with comments to get the requirements right but here is one more: In your Chrome browser do you have a script manager installed? If I say TamperMonkey or ViolentMonkey or GreaseMonkey, does that ring a bell, is that something you see in your chrome window? The *-Monkey stuff is a plugin that allows you to run so called userscripts. Basically javascript code we can write and you can then run in your browser. I'm asking in case the screenshots will not work for you and we would need to explore other options.

@rene i used to have TamperMonkey, I think, someone suggested it to me once so I could bypass whitelisting sites that demanded I disabled my ad-blocker. Installed, couldn't figure out how to install the script, after a year of me sporadically trying, gave up and uninstalled it. I no longer view those websites because of the bombardment of ads.

@rene I have exactly five extensions installed, one of which is "StaticShot", which captures screen images but fails miserably to capture an entire page, regardless of any website, big white chunks appear when I ask it to capture a page. P.S Gotta go, work calls!

I assume you tried the "Save page as" option in chrome but found its results disappointing? (I found it disappointing)

Suddenly it's all downvotes. What's happening? @rene What's changed since yesterday? Is it connected to Winter bash? I've not tried "save page as" for posts on SE, let alone chat because I'm aware it only saves a single page at a time. It's not a problem for me to take a screenshot of a single answer, a comment or whatever. It's when there are at least three pages of messages that it becomes time consuming. If I had known earlier about bookmarking I would have saved a fair bit of time in the past but I didn't.

Have a look at this.

@Ollie The OP explained they are not computer wizards. That link offers solutions that are not any better then the ones already linked in the question.