The “Messenger” feature is one of the most basic ways that you can use Skype. Basically, it consists of you sending quick text messages back and forth with someone else who is currently using Skype. Here’s a quick rundown of how to use it:
Download Skype for your computer, mobile, or tablet to stay in touch with family and friends from anywhere. This site uses cookies for analytics, personalized content and ads. By continuing to browse this site, you agree to this use. 27,462,753 likes 6,075 talking about this. Skype is for doing things together, whenever you’re apart. Skype makes it simple to share experiences with the people that matter to you, wherever. In a Skype for Business conference call (a Skype for Business meeting with audio) and don’t want to be disturbed. Set automatically for you when you have joined a conference call or a meet now session. Do Not Disturb. Don’t want to be disturbed and will see conversation notifications only if sent by someone in your workgroup.
- Open your Skype desktop program and log in.
- In the Contacts menu on the left-hand side, click on the person you want to send messages to, in order to select them. In this example, we’re going to message Alyson, our video producer here at Techboomers. Her status says that she is “Online”, so she will probably answer us fairly immediately if we send her a message (as opposed to Steve, as his status is set to “Away”). A person’s name will be highlighted when they are selected.
- Your main window will change to show you a history of messages (and other activities) between you and the selected person, including the date and time of each action. The lighter messages aligned to the right are from you, and the darker messages aligned to the left are from the other person (you can also tell because their picture is beside them).The buttons in the top-right corner let you do things like call the person, video chat with them, or add another person to the conversation. We’ll get into how to use those in the Skype Calls and Skype Video Chat tutorials.
- For now, we’re just going to send a basic message. Click inside the box at the bottom that says “Type a Message Here” and type in what you want to say to the person. When you’re done, click the send button () or press the “Enter” key on your keyboard.
- Now, let’s wait for Alyson to send a message back to us. When the other person is writing a message back to you, you will see the message “[person’s name] is typing…” at the bottom of the message list. When they click the send button () or press the “Enter” key, their message will display on your screen.
- Now, let’s spice things up a bit by adding an “emoticon” to our message. An “emoticon” is a small, sometimes animated picture that depicts a facial expression or other object to convey information, tone, mood, and so on.To add an emoticon to your message, click the emoticon button () to open a list of available emoticons. When you move your mouse cursor over one, it will show you that emoticon’s animation and, at the bottom of the screen, what the emoticon represents and the shortcut that you can type in to get that emoticon (in the example here, to quickly get a “cheeky” emoticon, type in a colon followed by a “p”, like this: “:p”).Click on the emoticon to add it to the message that you’re currently typing.
- Clicking the send other button () allows you to send things other than just text messages. You can send:– a picture as a message
– a computer file that the other person can download
– a video message to the other person
– information for one or more of your Skype contacts, so the other person can contact them, too - When you click Photos or Send File, it opens a file explorer where you can navigate to the picture or file that you want to send, click on it to select it, and then click Open.If you send a picture, it will count as your message. If you send a file, though, the other person has to accept it, and then it will be transferred to their computer.
- If you click Send Video Message, a new screen will come up where you can see yourself in your webcam. Click the record button () to start recording your message, and then click it again to stop (or it will stop automatically after 3 minutes).Once you’re done recording, you can click the play button () that will appear at the bottom of the video to review it. If you’re okay with it, click the send video message button (). Otherwise, click the cancel button () to re-record the message, or stop sending it altogether.
- If you click Send Contacts, a pop-up list of your contacts will appear. Click the check boxes next to the contacts that you want to send to the other person, in order to mark them. Then, click the Send Contacts button.
And that’s pretty much everything that you can do using Skype Messenger!
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This article gives you an overview of the interoperability capabilities between Microsoft Teams and Skype (Consumer). Learn how Teams users and Skype users can communicate through chats and calls and the admin controls that apply.
Teams users in your organization can chat with and call Skype users by using their email address and vice versa.
- Teams users can search for and start a one-on-one text-only conversation or an audio/video call with a Skype user.
- Skype users can search for and start a one-on-one text-only conversation or an audio/video call with a Teams user.
This is available on the desktop, web, and mobile (Android and iOS) clients for both Teams and Skype. For an optimal experience, we recommend Skype version 8.58 and later.
Chat and calling experience
Here's an overview of the chat and calling experience.
Teams user starts a chat or call with a Skype user
Teams users can search for a Skype user by typing their email address in a new chat or in the search bar. The Teams user can then select the Skype user in the search results to start a chat or call with them.
A Skype user may choose not to appear in search results. In this case, they won't show up in the search results in Teams and Teams users won't be able to find them.
Skype user starts a chat or call with a Teams user
Skype users can search for and start a chat with a Teams user by using their email address. The Teams user is notified that they have a new message from a Skype user and have to first accept the message before they can reply to it.
- If the Teams user selects Accept, the conversation is accepted, and both users can chat and call each other.
- If the Teams user selects Block, the conversation is blocked, and subsequent messages and calls from that Skype user are blocked.
- If the Teams user selects View messages, the message is displayed in Teams, which helps the user decide whether to accept or block the conversation.
If you upgraded from Skype for Business to Teams and your users are in Teams Only mode, chats and calls from Skype users to Teams users are delivered to Teams. If your users are in Islands mode, chats and calls from Skype users to Teams users are delivered to Skype for Business.
Teams user blocks or unblocks a Skype user
After a Teams user accepts or blocks the initial conversation request from a Skype user, they can choose to block or unblock that person at any time, either in the conversation or in their privacy settings in Teams. Skype users won't know that they've been blocked.
Blocked Skype users, along with other people and public switched telephone network (PSTN) phone numbers that a Teams user has blocked, are listed on the user's blocked contact list in Teams.
Limitations
- Conversations are text-only. This means that there's no rich formatting, @mentions, emojis, or other any of the other chat features that are available in a native Teams chat experience.
- Conversations are one-on-one only. Group chats aren't supported.
- Teams users and Skype users can't see each other's presence.
- Searching for Skype users by using their Skype ID or phone number isn't supported.
- Skype users can't call Teams users who set up call forwarding to another user's number, a delegate's number, or a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) number. Only voicemail is supported.
- Interop escalation, group calls, and meetings aren't supported.
- The ability for a delegate to call a Skype user on behalf of a Teams user isn't supported.
- Screen sharing with chat isn't supported.
Set whether Teams users can communicate with Skype users
As an admin, you use the Microsoft Teams admin center or PowerShell to set external access settings to control whether Teams users in your organization can communicate with Skype users. By default, this capability is turned on for new tenants.
If you upgraded from Skype for Business to Teams, the external communications settings that you configured in the Skype for Business admin center are migrated to Teams.
In the Microsoft Teams admin center
In the Microsoft Teams admin center, go to Org-wide settings > External access, and then turn on Users can communicate with Skype users. For step-by-step guidance on how to configure this and other external access settings, see Manage external access in Teams.
Skype For Business Chat
Using PowerShell
Use the Set-CsExternalAccessPolicy cmdlet together with the
EnablePublicCloudAccess
parameter to control whether Teams users can communicate with Skype users. Setting the parameter to true
allows Teams users to communicate with Skype users. Note that the EnablePublicCloudAudioVideoAccess
parameter can be used to enable/disable audio/video calls.