It’s official: Skype is dead. The long-lived (by internet standards) voice-over-internet app has been put out to pasture by parent company Microsoft. Though Skype was once considered the way to call someone online, it’s now going the way of Google Hangouts and dozens of other trendsetting apps before it. Come May 5, it’ll officially be replaced by Microsoft Teams.
It’s truly the end of an era. Launched in 2003, Skype quickly became synonymous with video calls online, with “skype-ing” entering the lexicon as its own verb. It has supported countless long distance relationships, podcasts recording sessions, and remote D&D games, but after being supplanted by apps like Zoom during the pandemic, it seems Microsoft has decided it’s finally time to go.
Users will be prompted to transition to Microsoft Teams
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Microsoft is doing its best to make the transition seamless, and “over the coming days,” will roll out the ability for Skype users to sign into a Microsoft Teams account and immediately import their Skype chats, contacts, photos, and call history. Users who wish to move on from Skype will also be able to export their data to download locally, and Microsoft tells The Verge that it’s also made a tool that will allow users to view their Skype chat history after the shutdown.
The company also says that Skype and Teams will be interoperable from now until the shutdown, so if you migrate to Teams and then message one of your old Skype contacts, they’ll still see your message on Skype.
No more Skype calls
However, one big part of Skype will go away once Teams officially supplants it—phone calls. While Microsoft says it will honor existing Skype credits and subscriptions, it’s not going to support paid Skype features beyond that—and existing subscribers won’t be able to renew once their plans run out. To help customers as they use up their paid benefits, the Skype dial pad will be available within the Skype web portal and within Teams after the shutdown.
The choice to sunset Skype follows a move in December that saw Microsoft phasing out new Skype Credit sales as well as the Skype Number feature, which allowed users to use Skype to answer calls and send texts from a standard phone number. In retrospect, it seems the writing has been on the wall for a while.
“We hope we’ll migrate most Skype users,” Microsoft’s Jeff Tepper told The Verge, “…but we want to make sure the users know they’re in control.”
To that end, while Teams is definitely a viable choice for personal use despite its more business-oriented name, you might find yourself preferring one of its competitors. From our friends at PCMag, here are some of best free video calling apps to consider migrating to once the Skype shutdown arrives.