Microsoft retired Skype on 5 May 2025 and pointed users to the free version of Microsoft Teams. The app no longer accepts sign-ins. Anyone who did not export their chat history before 15 June 2026 has lost it, because Microsoft began deleting Skype data on 1 April 2026.
Is Anything Left of Skype in 2026?
Almost nothing. As of 17 September 2026, the Skype apps are dead, the accounts cannot be opened, and the service exists only as a redirect toward Teams.
One narrow exception survives. Microsoft says people who still held an active paid Skype subscription when the service closed can keep using the Skype Dial Pad to call phone numbers, either from the Skype web portal or from inside Teams Free, until that subscription runs out. Everything else that made Skype a product is gone.
Can You Still Recover Your Skype Messages?
No. The export window closed on 15 June 2026, and Microsoft warns that anything requested after that point may not reflect a full history.
The dates matter because they moved. Most of the coverage written around the shutdown told readers their data would sit safely until January 2026. Microsoft later extended the window, then set out a different sequence in its own support documentation: deletion of Skype chat and call history began on 1 April 2026, and the export portal stayed open until 15 June 2026. Requests could take up to 30 days to process.
There is one way old conversations still exist. Microsoft’s guidance says chat and call history carried across into Teams Free only for people who were active Skype users between December 2024 and February 2025 and who then moved to Teams Free and used it before 1 December 2025. Miss either condition and the history was not preserved. If you meet both, the messages are inside Teams Free rather than anywhere called Skype.
What Happened to Skype Credit and Paid Subscriptions?
Microsoft stopped selling both and let existing ones run out rather than cancelling them outright.
New purchases of Skype Credit and subscriptions ended when the retirement was announced. Automatic renewals continued until 3 April 2025, and subscriptions bought before that stayed active through the end of the period already paid for. Remaining credit did not simply vanish either: it could be spent on calls through the Dial Pad in Teams Free or the web portal.
Why Did Skype Lose to Teams, Zoom and WhatsApp?
Skype was shut down because its audience shrank while the video-calling market grew around it.
The clearest measure is Microsoft’s own. Skype had about 40 million daily users in March 2020, at the start of a pandemic that should have been the best thing that ever happened to a video-calling app. By February 2023 that figure had fallen to roughly 36 million. Zoom, WhatsApp and FaceTime absorbed the growth instead, and Microsoft Teams, launched in 2016, became the company’s priority.
Microsoft executives described it as consolidation rather than failure. Jeff Teper, president of Microsoft 365 collaborative apps and platforms, said putting all the company’s focus behind Teams would let it give a simpler message and innovate faster. Amit Fulay, a vice president of product, said telephony usage patterns on Skype had changed.
The financial arc is blunter. Microsoft paid $8.5 billion for Skype in May 2011, having watched eBay buy it in 2005 for about $2.6 billion and then sell a majority stake in 2009. Skype was first released on 29 August 2003 by Niklas Zennström, Janus Friis and a small team of Estonian developers. It ran for a little under 22 years. Skype was not the only casualty of the shift either, as the fate of Google Duo showed.
What Should You Use Instead of Skype?
Microsoft’s own answer is Teams Free, and it is the only option that could have carried your contacts over.
- Microsoft Teams Free: the official successor, signed into with the old Skype credentials, and the only service that imported Skype contacts and chats.
- WhatsApp: the default for free voice and video calls in most of the world, provided both people have the app.
- FaceTime: practical only when everyone involved is on Apple devices.
- Zoom or Google Meet: better suited to scheduled meetings and larger groups than to casual one-to-one calls.
The one thing none of them replaces cleanly is calling ordinary phone numbers cheaply from a computer, which was Skype’s original argument for existing. If that was what you used it for, check whether a replacement offers paid outbound calling before you commit. Teams Free does, through the same Dial Pad, and Microsoft has continued to fold personal and work Teams accounts together.
Frequently Asked Questions
When Exactly Did Skype Shut Down?
On 5 May 2025. Microsoft announced the closure on 28 February 2025, giving users about ten weeks’ notice.
Is Skype Ever Coming Back?
No. Microsoft has given no indication of a return, and as of 17 September 2026 the brand survives only as a name attached to the Dial Pad feature inside Teams.
How Much Did Microsoft Pay for Skype?
$8.5 billion, completed in May 2011. eBay had paid about $2.6 billion for it in 2005.
Why Did Microsoft Choose Teams Over Skype?
Microsoft said it wanted a single free consumer communications product rather than two competing ones, and Teams was the platform it had been investing in since 2016.
Can I Get My Skype Chat History Back Now?
Only if you moved to Teams Free in time and met Microsoft’s activity conditions. Otherwise the data was deleted after 15 June 2026 and cannot be retrieved.
