The era of Skype dominating online communication faded away a long time ago, but Microsoft is still keeping it alive with infrequent updates. Now, a significant update to Skype’s messaging features is rolling out.
Microsoft announced “Skype Messaging 2.0” on the Skype Blog, which aims to bring some usability features from competing services like Discord and Teams over to Skype. The mobile app has updated menus when holding down on a conversation, with the ability to quickly create an invite link, clear messages, add or remove from favorites, and more. There’s also an updated context menu when holding down on an individual message, with options for reactions, copying the text, replying and forwarding the message, and bookmarking the message.
Skype also has new emoji, but it’s still lacking the custom emoji and sticker features that exist in Discord and other competitors. The blog post explains, “We’ve also spiced up the emoji screen to make it super easy and fun to use. Now, with an expanded library of expressive emojis at your fingertips, you can easily discover the ideal emoji match. Simply long-press a message you wish to reply to and tap the ‘+’ sign. It’s simple, friendly, and ready to roll.”
The general appearance of chats has also been updated. Photo galleries now appear as stacks of images, like iMessage on Apple devices, and message replies now have a vertical line and a shadow effect to make them more recognizable. You can also preview some uploaded files before downloading them, like PDFs.
The long-term future of Skype is still unclear. Microsoft has tried making its Teams chat application more usable for home users with the ability to create free group chats, but that hasn’t really taken off, and the company gave up trying to fully integrate Teams in Windows 11. Even in its abandoned state, it’s still one of the best free cross-platform messaging options: there are apps for Mac, Windows, Linux, iPhone/iPad, Android, web browsers, and even Alexa devices.
Skype will probably continue to receive occasional updates until Microsoft figures out a better plan for its messaging efforts. You can download Skype from the official website.
Source: Skype Blog
