Skype starts from chats, and borrows functions from Discord, Teams and even Apple Messages

Skype is no longer the dominant platform of online communication that those who lived abroad some time ago were able to appreciate and love, and if their future it’s as uncertain as ever, every now and then Microsoft remembers that it exists and releases a update (if you are wondering what Skype is and how it works, this is the guide for you).

This is the case of Skype messaging 2.0announced a few days ago with a post on the company’s blog and which aims to bring some functionality from competing services such as Discord And Teamsas well as Apple Messages.

Among the new features, the menu shortcut, a new way to share the files and a new one interface to see the multimedia files: let’s discover them all!

When you hold down one conversation, you will now have access to a new context menu that allows you to quickly create a link of invitation, cancel The messages, add or remove from favorites, while if you press and hold a single message the context menu has been updated with rearranged actions with options for reactions, copying text, replying and forwarding the message, and bookmarking the message.

Skype has also introduced new emoji, but it still lacks the custom emoji and sticker features that exist in Discord and other platforms. The blog post claims to have “made the emoji screen more fun so that it is easier and more fun to use“. Just long press a message you want to reply to and tap the “+” sign.

The general appearance of the chats has also been updated: the Photo gallery in fact, it shows overlapping elements reminiscent of Apple’s iMessage, while the replies to messages they now have a vertical line and a shadow effect to make them more recognizable. Forwarded messages are also now clearer, as the entire message is displayed and context is retained.

As regards the call notificationsare now more than just alerts, with the ability to respond with a message or call back, and avatars have been introduced for contacts in group conversations, with interactive names.

In the end, Microsoft it also improved the file sharingallowing you to preview some uploaded files before downloading them, such as PDFs.

Despite this update, the future of Skype it is not yet clear. Lately, Microsoft has focused more on Teams, but without much success, and we still know well what to expect from these platforms, especially now that the bulk of the attention is on Copilot. We’ll see, for now Skype chat users will appreciate the update.