Skyperious

Skyperious is a Skype chat history tool.

You can open and browse Skype's main.db databases from before Skype version 8, or create such databases from Skype online service and Skype export archives.

With an opened database, you can:

• search across all messages and contacts
• read chat history in full, see chat statistics and word clouds
• export chats and contacts as HTML, text or spreadsheet
• compare and synchronize messages with another Skype database, merging their differences

Additionally, it doubles as a useful database tool for any SQLite file:

• view and filter database tables, fix database corruption
• change, add or delete data in tables
• execute direct SQL queries
• export tables and query results as HTML, SQL or spreadsheet

Also, a command line interface is available with key functions like exporting, searching, syncing, and merging. The graphical version includes a Python console window.

Skyperious was initially written in 2012 to work with local Skype databases (main.db files in user folders), mostly in order to merge chat histories from different computers with different slices of chat history.

Over time it grew into a more general tool to search and export Skype chat history, and manage the local Skype database e.g. pruning unneeded contacts. It could also communicate with a local running Skype instance, to add contacts from a file exported from MSN / GMail and the like.

Around 2017, starting from Skype version 8, Skype moved away from its famous peer-to-peer architecture to a client-server system, closed API access to local running Skype instances, and started to store conversation history on its own servers only.

Skyperious was updated to be able to create new local Skype databases, by downloading messages from Skype online service via login inside Skyperious, or by importing a Skype export archive (a .tar archive manually downloaded from Skype website, containing a messages.json file).

In 2025 May, Skype is shut down altogether, and its accounts migrated to Microsoft Teams.

Skyperious is still able to import Skype export archives, and work locally with the database as before, but synchronizing messages from Skype online will no longer be possible once the online service is terminated.

Skyperious can look through user directories and detect Skype databases automatically, or you can select specific files or folders. Once added to the database list, a file can be opened for browsing, searching and exporting, or compared with another database for merging.

Searching an opened database supports a simple query syntax. You can use keywords to search among specific authors or chats only (from:john, chat:links), or from certain dates only (date:2012, date:2010..2013-06). Search supports wildcards, exact phrases, grouping, excluding, and either-or queries.

Skyperious can log into Skype online service and download and save new messages int the local database file. It can also create a new main.db database from scratch, by downloading all available history.

Skyperious stores shared files and media in a subfolder next to the database, browsable by themselves, available as in-program links, and embedded in HTML exports.

In database comparison, you can scan one database for messages and shares not found in the other, and copy all detected differences to the other database. Or you can browse and copy specific chats and contacts.

Skyperious can also merge chat history exported from Skype into an existing main.db, via Compare and merge -> Select a Skype chat history export archive from your computer.
Skype export is available in Skype web interface under My account -> Export files and chat history.

Skyperious offers a number of options from the command line:

  export FILE [-t format]    export Skype databases as HTML, text or spreadsheet
  search "query" FILE        search Skype databases for messages or data
  sync FILE                  download new messages from Skype online service
  create FILE [-u user]      create new Skype database, blank or from a Skype source
  merge FILE FILE ...        merge two or more Skype databases into a new database
  diff FILE1 FILE2           compare chat history in two Skype databases
  gui [FILE]                 launch Skyperious graphical program (default option)

Skyperious can be minimized to tray, clicking the tray icon opens a message search popup.

The program itself is stand-alone, can work from any directory, and does not need additional installation, Windows installers have been provided for convenience. The installed program can be copied to a USB stick and used elsewhere, same goes for the source code. The command line interface only needs Python to run.

Skyperious has been tested under Windows 11, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP and Ubuntu Linux, and reported to work under OS X and Windows 8. In source code form, it should run wherever Python and the required Python packages are installed.

• Python, www.python.org
• wxPython, wxpython.org
• appdirs, pypi.org/project/appdirs
• beautifulsoup4, pypi.org/project/beautifulsoup4
• ijson, pypi.python.org/pypi/ijson
• jsOnlyLightbox, github.com/felixhagspiel/jsOnlyLightbox
• Pillow, pypi.org/project/Pillow
• pyparsing, pypi.org/project/pyparsing
• six, pypi.org/project/six
• SkPy, pypi.org/project/SkPy
• step, Simple Template Engine for Python, github.com/dotpy/step
• XlsxWriter, pypi.org/project/XlsxWriter

Binaries compiled with PyInstaller, www.pyinstaller.org.

Installers created with Nullsoft Scriptable Install System, nsis.sourceforge.io.

Includes fonts Carlito Regular and Carlito bold, fedoraproject.org/wiki/Google_Crosextra_Carlito_fonts.

Emoticon images in HTML export are property of Skype Limited, © 2004-2006, released under the Skype Component License 1.0 .

Default avatar icon from: Fancy Avatars, © 2009 Brandon Mathis, github.com/imathis/fancy-avatars

Several icons from: Fugue Icons, © 2010 Yusuke Kamiyamane, p.yusukekamiyamane.com

(The MIT License)

Copyright (C) by Erki Suurjaak

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

The software is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. In no event shall the authors or copyright holders be liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection with the software or the use or other dealings in the software.