Microsoft Tweaks Skype Notifications in Outlook.com and OneDrive

Microsoft Tweaks Skype Notifications in Outlook.com and OneDrive

Microsoft reached out to me this morning to discuss a nice change coming to Skype notifications in Outlook.com and OneDrive on the web. If you’ve complained about the intrusiveness of these notifications, as I have, you’ll appreciate this.

As you may recall, Microsoft added Skype notifications to Outlook.com and OneDrive on the web last year. But the firm neglected to provide a way to turn those notifications off. So if you left either site open in a web browser tab, you would receive multiple notifications—from the Skype app in Windows, plus those tabs—every time Skype woke up to tell you something. It got me a bit twitchy, for sure. But it made using those services on the web, as I prefer, maddening.

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In January, Microsoft finally added the feature I was asking for: A way to turn off Skype notifications in Outlook.com and OneDrive. So you can make the change once and it will persist across these services, and across browsers and PCs, going forward.

This week, however, Microsoft is further tweaking this capability.

“This week you will have the options to customize IM and Call notifications per your personal preference under Skype settings,” Skype director of products Eugene Ho told me. Here’s what the new settings UI will look like.

What I see here looks great: Now, you can individually configure chat (IM) and call notifications, and whether each triggers sounds. Very nice.

 

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Conversation 3 comments

  • goodbar

    Premium Member
    16 May, 2017 - 9:33 am

    <p>Now if we can figure out how to make sure calendar notifications only come thru the browser or the PC, not both…</p>

  • arolfjm

    Premium Member
    16 May, 2017 - 3:38 pm

    <p>This is a Band-Aid, at best. In my experience, Notifications on Windows 10/ Microsoft services have never worked right. They are unreliable, or at least inconsistent in when they go off. Further, nothing is more frustrating than triaging a full action center's-worth of notifications on one device only to have to do it again later on another device. Dismiss on one device should IMMEDIATELY dismiss on all. The system needs work, and rather than more user configuration, they should apply some of that AI they are working on.</p>

  • kjb434

    Premium Member
    16 May, 2017 - 9:24 pm

    <p>Thurrott's national nightmare of Skype notifications are finally over…</p><p><br></p>

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