Skype shuts ill nearest 22 years Microsoft Strikes Customers to Groups Heres How You Can Export Knowledge

Nearly 22 years later, Microsoft has finally shut down Skype. Since 5 May 2025, this popular video calling app is now officially closed. The company announced in February this year that Skype would be replaced by Microsoft Groups. This will affect crores of users who used Skype for years for both personal and professional works.

According to Microsoft, both Skype’s free and paid users can login on groups and access their old chats and contacts. Only Skype for Industry users have been automatically merged in groups. If a user does not want to use groups, then he can download Skype data and shift to another app.

Users have time till January 2026 for data exports. If you login to Microsoft Groups Isolated by then, then your calling and chat history will be available there. But if you do not take any action, then in January 2026 your entire Skype data will be deleted.

To download Skype data:

• Go to the Skype Export page and sign in the Microsoft account.
• Choose conversion, files or both.
• Click on Publish Request and save the file when the download is completed.

Microsoft bought Skype in 2011 and at one time it wanted to integrated into the Home Windows, Xbox and mobile and reach the billion-user target. But frequent changes in the interface, slow updates and the rapidly growing popularity of Zoom, Slack, Discord, left it behind.

While in 2011, Skype had 150 million monthly users, by 2025 it was reduced to just 23 million. Now this journey is completely over, of a period that was once a symbol of online calling.