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We conducted a survey, with 81 responses, and interviewed 14 participants to understand the unexpected ways instant messengers are used for purposes beyond communication, focusing on how they are used for Personal Information Management (PIM). We used an iterative process of open-coding and affinity diagramming to reveal three key themes: users' reappropriation of messaging technologies for saving, remembering, and transferring information; users' struggles and strategies to find information buried in conversations; and users' emotional attachments and attitudes about keeping and deleting this data. 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