It’s the end of the road for Skype as today marks the official retirement of the legendary communication platform. Existing Skype users can migrate to Microsoft Teams (free) with their Skype credentials, contacts, and chat history automatically transferring to the new platform. Skype users can export their data until January 2026, after which it will be permanently deleted.
Microsoft’s official reasoning for shutting down Skype is “streamlining our free consumer communications offerings so we can more easily adapt to customer needs”. Microsoft Teams (free) does come with a few downgrades compared to regular Skype. Group video calls are limited to 60 minutes and you also can’t use Teams for pay-as-you-go calling and SMS like you could with Skype Credit.
From its humble beginnings in 2003 and several major acquisitions, including the one by Microsoft in 2011, Skype was one of the most influential voice over IP (VoIP) platforms over the last two decades.