Skype closed on 5 May 2025, and until June 2026 Microsoft let people ask for a copy of their history from Skype's export page. The copy arrives as a .tar file - 8_yourname_export.tar - holding messages.json, one long file of every conversation in a format meant for computers, and, if files were asked for, the photos and files that were shared. Microsoft pointed people to a separate viewer download for it, which was not downloading when this page was written in October 2026. This page reads the export as it is and puts it back together as conversations: bubbles, names, a heading for each day, calls, group changes, quotes, and the photos where they were sent.
Drop the .tar straight in - there is no need to unpack it, and it is read in place, so even an export of many gigabytes opens without filling the computer's memory. Search finds any word across every conversation, the date picker jumps to a day, and each conversation can be printed or saved as a PDF, a web page, plain text or a CSV spreadsheet; Save all writes every conversation as a set of web pages with the photos beside them, to keep. It is free to use, with no account and no upload limit, and it runs entirely in your browser: nothing is uploaded, and while the page stays open, a feature you have already used keeps working offline.
None of this is needed to use this page, which reads the .tar as it is. To unpack it anyway: on recent versions of Windows 11, right-click the file and choose Extract All, or on Windows 10 and 11 open Command Prompt in its folder and type tar -xvf followed by the file name. On a Mac, double-click it. On a phone, there is no need to unpack it: open this page in the phone's browser and choose the .tar from Files or Downloads.
- Is it safe to open my Skype history here?
- Yes. The export is read by your own browser and never sent anywhere - there is no server that sees it, and nothing is kept after the tab is closed. The browser's developer tools show it: nothing of the file appears in the Network tab. Message content is never run as code either: Skype's formatting is read into plain text, links and pictures, so a link or script hidden in an old message cannot do anything.
- How do I read messages.json from a Skype export?
- Drop it here, or the whole .tar it came in. messages.json holds every conversation in one file, with each message's text wrapped in Skype's own markup, so a text editor shows it as a wall of code; this page lays it out as the conversations it records. A file too big for a text editor to open - several hundred megabytes - is fine here, as it is read a piece at a time.
- Can I still request a Skype export?
- Microsoft's support page said export requests would be taken until 15 June 2026, that deleting Skype data would begin on 1 April 2026 - so an export asked for after that might not hold the full history - and that the history of people not active in Skype or Teams Free would be deleted completely after 15 June. Whether the export page still offers anything for your account is something only it can tell you: sign in at secure.skype.com/en/data-export with the same Microsoft account. An export asked for earlier may still be waiting there to download.
- Why do some Skype photos show only a file name?
- The export page offered conversations and files separately. If only conversations were exported, messages.json still says that a photo or file was sent, and its name, but the file itself is not included. If you did export files, they may be in a second .tar - choose it together with the first.
- Can it open main.db from the old Skype desktop app?
- Yes. Skype 7 and earlier kept the history on the computer in a file called main.db, in a folder named after your Skype name (on Windows under AppData\Roaming\Skype). Choose that file and its conversations, calls and file transfers open the same way. Later versions of Skype kept history online, so for those the export is the way in.
- How do I keep my Skype chats for good?
- Press Save all: every conversation becomes a web page that opens in any browser, with an index page and the photos in a folder beside them, so the history stays readable without Skype or this site. A single conversation can be saved as a PDF too, or as CSV to open in a spreadsheet. Keep the original .tar as well.
- What about WhatsApp or iPhone messages?
- The WhatsApp Chat Viewer reads chats exported from WhatsApp in the same way, and the iPhone Backup Viewer gets messages, WhatsApp chats and photos out of an iPhone backup made on a computer.