Skype Is Finally Getting Read Receipts

Microsoft has been radically transforming Skype in the recent months. The company has added a lot of bright colours, GIFs, emojis, encrypted conversations, and other “modern” features to keep Skype up with the times. This week, the firm started testing another modern-ish feature for communication: read receipts.

Read receipts aren’t anything new, they have been around for years, in fact. But for Skype — they are. I believe this is the first time Microsoft is bringing read receipts to Skype, so it’s kind of a big deal. The company is starting off by testing read receipts on Skype across all platforms with preview build 8.26.76. Once you install the latest build, you will be able to see when someone has seen your messages, and send read receipts back to other members in a conversation. For groups, the feature only works if the group has less than 20 members. By the way, you won’t be able to receive read receipts from someone who isn’t on the latest preview build,  which means you may have to wait weeks or months to even be able to utilize this feature if your contacts haven’t installed the latest Skype.

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For those worrying — yes, Skype does let you disable read receipts, or temporarily disable sending read receipts by going Invisible, but that means you won’t get to see when people have read your messages, either. And that’s really a huge trade-off that exists across all messaging and social network platforms.

In other news, I can no longer avoid replying to messages from Paul and Brad.

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Conversation 11 comments

  • lwetzel

    Premium Member
    05 July, 2018 - 12:59 pm

    <p>is there any advantage of using messaging in Skype say over iPhone messenger? Am I wrong in thinking it is a paid messaging app?</p>

    • jchampeau

      Premium Member
      05 July, 2018 - 4:18 pm

      <blockquote><a href="#288739"><em>In reply to lwetzel:</em></a></blockquote><p>There isn't anything called "iPhone messenger." There's Facebook Messenger and then there's iMessage which works on iPhones, iPads, Apple Watch, macOS, and probably other Apple devices. Neither are paid apps, nor is Skype. There are advantages and disadvantages to each and what works best for one person might not work at all for the next person. To me, the advantage of Skype over iMessage is that I can see and respond to messages from my iPhone, iPad, and/or any of my several Windows machines. The disadvantage is that the Skype app itself is hokey and a little obnoxious sometimes.</p>

      • IanYates82

        Premium Member
        08 July, 2018 - 6:06 pm

        <blockquote><a href="#288809"><em>In reply to jchampeau:</em></a></blockquote><p>Cross platform is the big appeal. I carried on conversations that I started on my Windows phone over to two different Android handsets now, plus I can use my PC. History is there, plus there's video calling available at the touch of a button.</p><p>For all its faults, you get an awful lot in the free version. </p><p><br></p><p>Ignore the new stuff (funny faces, etc) where MS is trying to compete with snapchat though :)</p>

  • bluvg

    05 July, 2018 - 1:56 pm

    <p>Here comes karmapolice to say that Skype is crap.</p>

    • jean

      06 July, 2018 - 4:04 am

      <blockquote><a href="#288759"><em>In reply to bluvg:</em></a></blockquote><p>he is still nursing his Vodka</p>

  • Brazbit

    05 July, 2018 - 4:35 pm

    <p>So long as it can be disabled. One of the first things that I do when installing an email profile is to set prompt for receipts. Tabbing past emails would send read receipts when I wasn't actually reading the messages just happened to page past them while working on something else. With prompt I can choose to send it or hold off until actually read. Same would go for Skype, it may pop up on my screen but that doesn't necessarily mean it was read. </p>

  • SvenJ

    05 July, 2018 - 7:31 pm

    <p>If you want a read receipt, send an e-mail. Leave Skype for real time text chat, voice, video. Not every application has to do everything. </p>

  • fbman

    06 July, 2018 - 5:18 am

    <p>Not a function, I missed… but I suppose there are users that needs it</p>

  • JustMe

    Premium Member
    06 July, 2018 - 9:11 am

    <p>This isnt a feature of Skype I have ever needed or necessarily wanted, but I dont use Skype in a business environment (the closest I come to work use is Lync) – and even when I do use it, its sparingly. It is good, though, that you can disable it if needs be.</p>

  • James Wilson

    07 July, 2018 - 3:12 am

    <p>I really want to like Skype but just can't. For me, I like the phone call ability. With my Office 365 subscription, I get 1 hour of global calls a month. Trouble is, Skype makes it really hard. For example – I want to save a bunch of phone numbers as 'contacts' in Skype. Nope – can't do it. I have to enter the numbers in the 'People' or 'Contacts' app, then give Skype full access to my name and address book. I don't want to do that. It's little things like this that make it hard to like.</p><p><br></p><p>For me, the important things that would make Skype good again are:</p><p><br></p><p>1/ Skype Address book – that supports names / phone numbers only. The other person doesn't need a Skype account.</p><p>2/ End to end Encryption for messages.</p><p>3/ Ability to truly forget historical messages across all platforms ** I think this is now fixed **</p><p><br></p><p>I don't need the 'snapchat' like features – but that's fine – others do. I don't have to use them and they are not in your face. I'm also still confused as I have a Microsoft Account which translates to a Skype account. i don't need to see this – as far as i'm concerned – my Microsoft Account is my Skype account. What happens in the background should be hidden and be consistent across all platforms (Mac, Windows, iOS). </p>

  • Hoomgar

    09 July, 2018 - 3:54 pm

    <p>Does anyone actually really use Skype?&nbsp; I know I haven't and I've never met anyone that did.</p>

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