Skyperious

Frequently Asked Questions

• Does Skyperious work with modern Skype?
• Why am I getting login failure from Skype online?
• Can I download my shared pictures and other files?
• Can I automate backing up my Skype history?
• Can I merge chat history from another operating system?
• Can I use Skyperious on OS X?
• Does Skyperious open logs from other programs like AIM/ICQ/Miranda/..?
• Why are non-English letters like Å not visible in CSV export?
• Why does the database file size remain the same after deleting something?

Does Skyperious work with modern Skype?

Partially. Skype chat history is no longer available locally in main.db files, but Skyperious can still be used to download new messages from Skype online service, for keeping an archive of all chat history.
But any changes done to the database no longer affect what is visible in the official Skype program.

Why am I getting login failure from Skype online?

If login fails with "Authentication Failure", it may be because of having an original pre-Microsoft Skype account. A possible work-around is to make an e-mail the primary alias of your Skype/Microsoft account:

• log in at account.live.com
• go to "Services and subscriptions"
• choose "Use Outlook.com for free"
• select or add an e-mail to your account
• verify that logging in at outlook.live.com works
• login inside Skyperious should now work

Also, Skype login can sometimes fail for no discernible reason, giving errors like "Couldn't retrieve field from login response" or "That Microsoft account doesn't exist.". These failures tend to be intermittent: try again after a while.

Can I download my shared pictures and other files?

Yes, to a degree. Skyperious can automatically download shared pictures and audio/video messages for HTML export, saving them to a subfolder or embedding them in the HTML file.

Note that audio/video messages are kept online for 30 days, after that they will be unavailable for download. If you wish to automatically retain full chat histories including shared media, you should periodically synchronize your database from online, and export the chats as HTML.

Content shared before 2017 April is no longer available, that is when Microsoft moved Skype to the current client-server solution.

Can I automate backing up my Skype history?

Yes, Skyperious has a command-line interface (help.html#commandline), which can be used to set up a periodic sync task to download new messages from Skype online service, e.g. using Task Scheduler on Windows or cron on Linux.
Skyperious can also export messages from the command-line in a variety of output formats.

Can I merge chat history from another operating system?

Yes, the main.db files were the same on all platforms: Windows, OS X, Linux, Android and iOS.

Can I use Skyperious on OS X?

Yes, in source code form. See the installation guide.

Does Skyperious open logs from other programs like AIM/ICQ/Miranda/..?

No, it only worked with Skype.

If the file is an SQLite database, for example a WhatsApp message store, Skyperious will still open it. You can't browse chats or export messages, but you can access, search, and export database tables.

Why are non-English letters like Å not visible in CSV export?

CSV by specification does not support non-ASCII letters, so they get converted to question marks. Export to an Excel spreadsheet will keep all characters.

Why does the database file size remain the same after deleting something?

SQLite usually wipes the deleted data clean instead of rebuilding the file on each change. If you still want the file size to go down immediately, execute VACUUM in SQL window.