Skype Chat tips and tricks

By Jaanus on August 2, 2005 in Insight.

Skype Chat (some people call it "Instant Messaging", but doesn't "chat" sound much nicer and cleaner?) is the hidden gem of Skype. True, Skype is first and foremost about calling. But there are many times when you'd want to use text chat instead of, or together with, voice calls. So we went to great lengths to make it useful for ourselves -- there are probably thousands of Skype chats going on among the Skype staff and our friends and partners at any given time -- which hopefully means its useful and fun to you too.

Chat button

There are some things in the chat feature that are not obvious, but once you get to know them, you'll love them.

First, there is a [user guide](http://www.skype.com/help/guides/chat.html) for chat. True, you can get by with Skype without ever reading user guides, but this one contains several useful and not-so-obvious hints. I'm not going to retype all of it here, so head over to that guide and study it.

Some highlights.

### Drag and drop

Drag-and-drop works well in Skype chat. You can drag and drop people between your contact list and chats, or between chats. Want to add someone from your contact list to a chat? Just drag him/her from the contact list to an existing chat. Want to move people between chats? Drag them over to the other chat. The user objects in the chat participants list are large and easy to grab.

If you have an ongoing team chat and want to distribute a file to several people at the same time, there's no need to do separate File Transfers to everyone -- just drag and drop a file onto the chat window and it's sent to everyone in the chat (they have to accept it, of course).

### Die popups die!

Preferences differ. If you're not the busy type, you surely enjoy a window popping up every time someone wants to say hi. But if you're busy and engage in conversations with tens of people during the day, which is often the case if you use Skype at work, there's nothing more annoying than all those windows and notifications popping up. So do yourself a favour, go study the Options where you can turn things on and off as you like.

If you go to the "Advanced" section in Options and uncheck "Pop up chat window", all of those chat windows popping up suddenly disappear. When a new chat message is received, it is placed in the Events panel that provides an extremely handy overview of things wanting your attention, but lets you do your own choices as to which chats needs your attention in which order. Chat topics are useful, but if a chat doesn't have a topic, Skype automatically uses the first few words from the chat as the topic in the Events area. So the Events area becomes an inbox of sorts. (See also ["How we (don't) use e-mail"](http://share.skype.com/blog/insight/how_we_%28don%27t%29_use_e-mail/)).

See also the "Notifications" section that lets you enable or disable various types of event notifications -- those small windows appearing and disappearing when someone comes online, starts a chat/call with you or does any of the other things you can do in Skype.

### Small is beautiful

For minimalistic chat experience, try going to Advanced in Options and set chat style to IRC-like style, and hide the user list during the chat. Suddenly, much more text fits in the window since those "bubbles" between messages are no longer there. Of course, some people like bubbles, so you can give both styles a go and see for yourself which of the two is more useful to you.

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Works well. Easy to configure and it forwards the incoming skype call out to your cell.

very cool. skype is also powerful in IM. Sometimes I skype told me my IMs cant be delivered, I didn't know why.

Using text together with voice is actually very useful. I quite often mention links, names etc in my calls that is cumbersome to dictate or spell out so I just type it into chat window that I have opened up with the other party.

When will these chat options come to the Mac version of Skype?

you forgot one very important and usefull feature of Skype chat.
When it comes to talking, instant messaging or transferring files, we’ve gone to great lengths to make it secure. Skype automatically encrypts everything before sending it through the internet. Likewise, on arrival everything is decrypted on-the-spot and presented as crystal clear speak, text or a file transfer nobody can intercept.
via http://www.skype.com/products/

Amazing program! My company uses SkypeIn for all of our calls and using iSkoot has made life much easier, here is how we use it:

1. Customer dials 0845 or 0800 number
2. Call is routed to one of our 020 SkypeIn numbers
3. If an advisor is not available iSkoot & SkypeOut routes the call to an adviors mobile/cell phone
4. Customer and advisor are able to speak while on the move
All this happens in seconds, wonderful!

Can skype use a webcam?

Skype is an excellent program. I am getting more and more tired of using MSN messenger with all those ads and so on. Please keep the interface neat, clean and simple to use!

Thanks for skype!

Hey kckepz. Check out www.vskype.com and www.video4im.com. I prefer the second one for faster refresh, but vskype allows up to 8 simultaneous videos at once (great for a conf call.)

hi
ممكن تزدولى الرصيد ممكن انا ايميلى s_s_a_a_a ممكن

You might want to take a look at old software like mirc and how they handle flashing / beeping, and popping up.

I expect more than just a general "on / off" switch.

Mirc has setting (which are saved!) per channel, per user, if you want flashing, beeping or nothing at all. You can have highlighting on special words too.

Yes, I do understand you want to make it "fon for free" but Skype is also a lot about talking. I for example use Skype 90% for text - and the "look at me!!!!" 'features' are highly annoying both turned on or off.

Yes, I would like to have multichats with folks - when will those work with mac clients? And I would like simple basic features like chatrooms too - the technology for that has been around for a long time.

Hell make it "needs to be registered" if you don't want free chat rooms - which you already have, just with a messy interface.

(Oh and while you are at it - could someone please make a converter for the Chat history, as it seems impossible to regain that from Skype itself? Thank you.)

Please update the Mac version of Skype to allow text messaging in groups. I need it! I don't want to buy a PC!

nicole.simon:

Right click (for Windows) on the Contact's name in your contacts list to get chat history.

I assume on the Mac you would control click to get the same result.

This article should have an entrance to the Chat Section not just commentary.

Im trying to contact people in Italy and the connection keeps either hanging up or after 2 rings I get a busy signal or it won't connect. Could you help me out with this. The reason im trying to contact someone in Italy is Im looking for a CD of Bruno Venturni, I was in Rome in 2003 and I got side tracked and forgot to check some stores. I heard his singing after I got back to the crusie ship and then it was to late. Would appreciate any advice I could get thanks. By the way loved Sorento, and the Ice cream wow.

Skype is nice and works great for me too.
As said the IM function is also very handy and I use that a lot when giving people an url / email adres / phonenumber and so on..
The only thing that I miss is the function that you can see if the other side is typing back already, this way conversations sometimes get very messy.

Keep up the good work!! Free and plain without adds!!
Floris

csyria: That is what is supposed to happen, but it seems as if the 'read previous log' misses something - this function never work here. It is not enough that there is a button for it available

ich hab keine ahnung!!!!

the only thing missing is "xxxxxxx is typing a message"

How do you do it - I did not succeed. I have SkypeIn with a Finnish number, Skype Voicemail, SkypeOut and iSkoot. When I do a pure Skype call from another Skype to mine the call is transferred via Iskoot to my mobile as it should. But if I do a call from another mobile to my SkypeIn number the call just opens my VoiceMail.

bon ! c pas tout rien en francais ! va falloir tester avant de faire un autre commentaire !
bye bye
A tres bientot
A +

Unfortunatly Skype does not allow offline messages!
Therefore it is quite useless for instant messaging.

fladd: Skype does support offline messages, just that they are stored on the sender side instead of going through a server.

Jaanus: means you have to be online when contacts come online for them to recive your messages?

Great thing Skipe. I used very little yet and one of the first things that I'd have done is to chat while talking to solve some language issues (spanish/english) with my contacts. Also, surprisingly, I sent some offline IM just before i got this comments..
I agree with almost every comment... Please improve MAC version!! Please keep the interface neat, clean and simple to use!

Gracias a todos.

yeah, the offline msgs works like IRC so it's great for just leaving msgs and th receiver cna read them when they come online.

and the file transfer speed is the fastest . vs MSN =)

i love skype, but find myself using yahoo messanger for chat just because of the '.... is typing a message'. that is so useful -please please add this great feature to skype -i would much prefer to support skype. oh, and i agree -please bring the mac version up to date. pretty please.

can anybody tell me what the skypeout breakdown is in cents? for instance a call to brazil is .023 is that twenty three cents or 2.3 cents.

Hai,

Can anybody tell me how to create a 'chat to me' button in a html page, just like the skype me button, only instead of calling, it launches the skype instant messenging box.

Thank you in advance.

hi every body 26 male here love to chat cam 2 cam with girlz and ladies bye

hi______ anybody ...

Very nice software, route all call fastest and correct. O have US Skype number, and receive all calls on my mobile phone in Russia.

I just tried the free trial, and it seems to work quite well. I had no problems setting it up to forward to my cell. rsimonss comments that when a SkypeIn call comes through, it did not forward properly. I did not have that problem - both Skype calls and SkypeIn calls came through to the cell phone just fine. There is about a 1 second (or slightly less) time lag between when the SkypeIn caller spoke and when I heard it on my cell. That's a little annoying, but it's better than missing the call altogether because you're not at the PC.

Is there a way to make the Chat Alert remain on your screen and not disappear after it has popped up? I am being badgered by people who find it difficult to identify it in the system/task tray and they would like the pop-up window to stay in clear view until they see it (say for example tey are away from there compluter when the chat arrives)?

hi all -------24/m her eny one wana chat with me will be in welcome thanx all

hemedech/22/m/egypt/

Hi all!

I would like to disable the popup window of skype for incoming calls (got a phone ringing anyway when that happens

Anyone know how to do that?

Namm77

Hi - anybody help ? I know you can put a callto: in an email or on a website - but can you do the same to instigate a CHAT rather than a CALL ??? - any help would be appreciated Skype sunnyles les@digital-alternatives.com - tnx

i cannot chat on my skype....itz giving message not yet delivered..i have beta version of skype...i.e. 22.5 mb....plzzz help me out....

cool ! ,,
http://www.c77c.net

nice tips
--www.fairfantasy.com

"For minimalistic chat experience, try going to Advanced in Options and set chat style to IRC-like style, and hide the user list during the chat. Suddenly, much more text fits in the window since those "bubbles" between messages are no longer there. Of course, some people like bubbles, so you can give both styles a go and see for yourself which of the two is more useful to you."

Wrong! Actually you go to the main Skype window, click "Tools" then "Options" "Chats & SMS" "Chat Appearance" there is where you can choose which "Chat style" to use...

Hidden Skype Emoticons

Actually the skype chat support is really poor compared to any other chat software.
It would be really easier if skype release his chat protocol specifics at least in the way to allow building a chat client.

Few things which can be really annoying on some specific use of the program*.

1. Does not support tabbed windows. This is maybe the most annoying. If it happens, and it can, to chat with a lot of people, your desktop will be a full mess with windows while with tabbing it would be much cleaner, avoiding headaches.
2. Can't setup fonts.
3. Width and Height of windows, also the main one, are fixed to a default value that is too large so you can't make tiny windows.
4. Does not support spell checking.
5. Chat History is primitive, almost useless.

* Speaking about the linux version, 2.0.0.72

Is there any way to put a line-break in a chat message? 'Twould be nice.

@touchtone_james pressing shift-return should do the trick

Hmmm looks like this thread is pretty old (although I can't tell for sure, Monday, Dec 15 in what year? No I'm not going to bother working it out). However I shall give it a try anyway...

@Jaanus, http://www.skype.com/help/guides/chat.html no longer goes to a chat guide. It redirects to the general support page and from there I can't find a chat overview. Under "browse help topics" i clicked "technical issues and using skype", then "instant messaging with skype". I got "common questions for instant messaging with skype". But my question apparently isn't common enough. If there was still an actual chat userguide anywhere I'm sure the answer I need would be in it...

My question is, I've seen people "emoting" in Skype chat. I don't mean emoticons, I mean instead of a normal message I get "Fred Bloggs twiddles his thumbs" in my chat with Fred Bloggs. How do I do that? I could just ask Fred but pride prevents me.

BTW I checked out the common question "what are chat commands and roles", couldn't find it in there, but what I did find was some out-of-date stuff - e.g. "/htmlhistory" no longer does anything in Skype version 4 for Windows, which this page fails to mention.

@etw.dougmclean here's the current chat guide - and you can type /help into any chat to get the same.

I have been experiencing a strange chat "bug" since the installation of my mac system (10.5.8). I can see what I am typing but the result that is featured in the chat window is a string of commands that I don't understand. I have tried getting rid of my version of skype and downloading a new one but the result hasn't changed.
Following is a sample of such a string:
-- actually in trying to copy it into this window - it gets translated back to regular text - but suffice it to say that 2 words can be translated into 10 lines of this code giberish.

I have searched the web for answers but have come up empty.

Might you have an idea what it happening??

@castronawy could you send me a screenshot?

Thanks but I am not sure I know how to upload an image to this page...

Skype Chat tips and tricks

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