Both Microsoft “Messenger for Mac” and Adium offer far fewer features than the Windows MSN client – Windows Live Messenger — Why is that!?
For instance, just now I was signed into MSN in Adium and I wanted to send a link to a friend, but he wasn’t online; fine, I thought – I’ll just send the message now and he’ll get it when he comes online. 
But no! Adium informed me that the contact wasn’t online and gave me two choices – to send the message now and that it would only go through if the contact was appearing offline or send it later.
I tried the first option – but he wasn’t online… So, thinking that it would work the other way, I chose the second option – to send the message later. Little did I know that this doesn’t work in the same way as on Windows; In order for the message to get through later, both the contact and I have to be online (and I would have to be using Adium; rare for me, the person who bought an MBP for Windows :p).
So, frustrated with the offering from Adium, I downloaded Microsoft’s offering – Messenger for Mac and I was immediately disappointed – just clicking on an offline contact presented me with a dialog saying they were offline and “Would you like to mail this contact?” NO, I JUST WANT TO SEND AN OFFLINE MESSAGE!
So, are there any MSN clients for Mac that can offer this feature and preferably others i.e. Shared Folders (which is absent from Messenger for Mac)?
Is the fact that Adium (which seems to be a fairly well featured IM client) isn’t able to send offline messages through MSN Microsoft’s doing? If so, they should at least implement it in their own client!
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Josh Anderson's Blog 
A future version of Adium will have offline messaging support. You can obtain an unofficial build which does now (using experimental code) here:
UNOFFICIAL Adium with msnp15 testing
Cool, I will go check that out. Thanks
Works OK for sending offline messages but didn’t receive them! 😦
I use the Alvaro Messenger for mac, works perfectly har the cam, nudge, offline messages etc…probobly the closest to Microsofts, also the Mercury works good and has a lot of features..:)
Sound’s good, I’ll check both those out when I’m next on Mac.
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ughhhhhhh MAC MSN SUCKS BALLS. seriosuly, i dont have the option to play games, ..theres no sharing folders, and most importantly.. i cant appear offline nd send msgs or send msgs to people who are appearing offline. mac is supposed to be hi tech..what the fuck is this bullshit. anyone know if theres any other kind of msn i can download? like perhaps the regular msn for PCs?
Since I wrote this, Adium has improved somewhat; you can now send and receive offline messages using MSN but, that’s the only change – none of the other features from the Windows MSN client.
Oh, and Shared Folders have been removed in the beta version of the Windows client so I don’t foresee any Mac implementation of those 😦
I think Microsoft wants people to use Windows Live Skydrive instead; In my opinion that’s just more hassle.
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i recomend you Amsn, you can appear offline and send messages to people online and offline. you can use the iSight and micro. You can customize with lots of plugins. I just wonder how i can use shared folders, if that’s possible.
hi about this hassle… does adium support the way you can add smileys on a windows live messenger… cos mac messenger does not allow you to add any at all…
I know for sure that it allows you to install new ‘sets’ of emoticons but I’m not sure whether you can add individual one’s. Perhaps if you receive one, I don’t know…
But there doesn’t seem to be an option in the ‘Preferences, Appearance’ section.
Will let you know if I find out a different answer.
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