“How DO you delete unresponsive contacts from your Skype list?”
“Can I retrieve deleted names in Skype?”
“I set up groups (for use of Message Magic) in which to put my MM (Skype) people. I also had about 1000 people in my Skype contacts I had found through MM that did not respond to me and so I wanted to delete (remove) them. I dragged the names I wanted to keep into the appropriate groups and then proceeded to delete (remove) the rest. When I finished I suddenly found that ALL the names had been deleted. So now I have NO names in my Skype. Is there any way I can retrieve the names?
These are some recent questions from a member of my Skype Tips chat room.
I helped her to add Skype contacts back, how to remove them safely and how to back up her list for easily adding them back should the need ever arise again.
Basically, which ever Skype Group you highlight, will show only those contacts below in the list. In this case, she had highlighted her “All Contacts” in her Skype groups and removed them from there, losing them as her Skype contacts. Once they are no longer Skype contact of yours, they will also be gone from all your Skype groups.
How to Remove Un-added or Unresponsive Skype Contcts
If you want to remove contacts (gray ? un-added or unresponsive contacts for example, which, mind you, are different from each other – a gray ? means they have not added you or you them, they may still be responsive though ), … I digress. If you want to remove contacts, you can …
- move them to one group in your Skype, perhaps call this Group, “Remove “,
- THEN click to highlight only THAT group,
- now select all of them (Control A or …start at the top, click the top one and use your down arrow while holding down the Shift also).
- To remove them all at once, right click in the large blue area created by selecting all of these contacts at once, and choose “Remove Contacts”. Note that there is a choice in the menu also to “Remove from ___ Group”; this does not remove them as your contacts.
The mistake she made was to remove contacts from her All Contacts group in Skype. After creating the groups, she did not choose the one she just created. She still had “All Contacts” highlighted.
However, (the good news was) … we added many of them back from her History Tab on Skype, at least the ones who she has chatted with in the last month or so. If she had backed up her Skype contacts she would have been able to add all her contacts very easily.
I showed her how to safely remove and also how to add back some of her contacts from Skype History. Then I advised that she back up her Skype contacts periodically. Your contact list is a valuable asset. The more you have on your list (as well as the more you have worked to develop relationships you have built with your Skype contacts), the more valuable your Skype contact list is to you. Be sure to back it up!
Back up your Skype contact lists
You can do this very easily with a tool like Message Magic, even a trial or free version of it will work. Once you back up your Skype contacts into a file , it becomes very easy to add them as Skype contacts of yours all at once again. Which in a case like this woman’s, where she lost all her Skype contacts and wanted to add them back, this would have been very easy and quick to do with a click of a button inside Message Magic.
Backing up and adding your Skype contacts also comes in very handy if your Skype account gets hacked with the Skype virus or for some other reason you need to open a new Skype account. It is nice to have a back up of all your Skype contacts and groups and to add them all back again to a new Skype account.
New Video coming…
I made a video of backing up your Skype contacts using Message Magic. I hope it came out ok, it was on her computer seen through TeamVeiwer, and if I can find time to edit it, I will add it to my blog for you to watch. Let me know if you are interested in seeing this… add a comment below and also Skype me.
More Relevant Resources:
- For more Skype Tips subscribe to my newsletter here.
- For my help with Skype, etc, check out my private coaching here.