Skype for Mac OS X
Chat and group chat
Instant Messaging (IM) or chat allows you to communicate with other users with text messages. In many cases, chat may be useful for communicating with other users instead of, or in addition to, voice communication. For example, if you are discussing a website you visited recently, it may be easier to copy and paste a website address into the chat window instead of trying to spell this out during a call.
There are several ways to chat with a contact:
- Select a Skype Name from your Contact list and then click the blue chat button.
- Select a Skype Name and control-click or right-click the Skype Name in your Contact List or search result and select “Start Chat”. You can also click the drop down menu button and select “Start Chat”.
- Select a Skype Name from your Contact list and select “Start Chat” under the “Contacts” menu.
A chat window will appear when you start the IM. Simply type a message and press return to send an instant message. You can chat with several contacts at the same time in individual chat sessions or as a group chat. To keep track of who you are currently in a chat session with there is a chat drawer.
To switch between the different chat sessions just click on the contact in the drawer.
When you send and receive an instant message, you will hear an audio indication – a ping.
Emoticons
A picture tells a thousand words and with Skype you can send emoticons or small pictures in chats to show how you’re feeling. You can send emoticons by typing in a shortcut such as “J” or (y) or by selecting the drop down menu labelled emoticons to select the picture you’d like to send. For example, if you write (y) your friend will see a picture showing "thumbs up".
Using Chat with Groups
With Skype you can chat with up to 100 people in a group chat.
- Select the participants you would like to invite from your Contacts List by holding the Shift key and clicking each contact.
- Once you have selected the participants, click the drop down menu button and select “Start Chat”.
- A chat window will open with all of the participants.
If you are already in a chat and would like to add additional participants to the chat simply click the ‘Add’ button in the chat window, and choose the contacts you would like to add.
Set a topic
To keep track of bookmarked chats and group chats you can set a topic for the chat session. To set a topic, choose ”Set Topic…” from the ”Chat” menu and then enter your topic for the chat. The chat topic will be visible for all members of the chat.
Managing Chat Alerts
If you don’t want to get an alert when there is some activity in a chat session you can turn off all alerts for this chat session by typing ”/alertsoff” in the text box and hitting enter. You can also try the "/alertson sometext" command in the chat window. It's useful sometimes to set "/alertson yourname" so you’re only alerted to messages in the chat when someone mentions you by name.
No one else will see this message so they won’t know that you have turned off alerts. For a full list of text commands enter ”/help” in the text box.
Managing your Chat History
Skype archives your chats for you and stores them locally on your computer, if you have enabled this option. Chat histories are not stored anywhere on the Skype network. In other words, no one else will ever be able to see any of your chat histories except you and the person you are chatting with. Chats are archived as a convenience to you, so that you can easily keep track of your chat conversations on Skype – think of it as sent mail for Skype.
To enable or disable this option go to “Skype” > “Preferences” > “Chat” and select your choice of chat history settings.
To view archived chat sessions for a specific contact, select the contact from your Contact List and go to “Contacts” > “View Chat History”. A browser window will open showing your previous chat sessions with the selected contact.
You can clear your chat history by selecting “Delete All Chat Messages” under the “Chat” menu.
Please note that calls are not archived and therefore won’t be shown in chat history.
If you want to backup your chat history or move it to another computer you can find it in a folder with the same name as your Skype Name in “username/Library/Skype”