SkyHistory

Editors' ReviewDownload.com staffApril 20, 2017As a pain-in-the-cache, searching archived e-mail messages has nothing on Skype's chat history and call logs. Scand's SkyHistory is a free Windows program that lets you view, manage, search, and save your Skype chat and call logs independent of your Skype client and settings. SkyHistory collects and stores all of your Skype data in a single database on your system's hard drive, ideally with a portable USB drive as backup. Its advanced searching, filtering, and bookmarking capabilities let you exclude senders whose messages you don't want to save (like spammers) and search for single messages or entire threads for individual users or whole groups within specific time frames. With SkyHistory, you can set wide or narrow time frames and particular users' histories, and then search for specific words or phrases. That's a big help when you remember talking or messaging with so-and-so about something or other a while ago (which describes our typical search). While SkyHistory will run in Windows versions as early as Windows 2000 and XP, the developer recommends a 1GHz CPU at a minimum, and 256MB of RAM. Of course, you'll need Skype, too, but if you're interested in SkyHistory, it's safe to assume you already use it.SkyHistory needs your permission to access your Skype client; once it's running, SkyHistory minimizes itself to the system tray. New SkyHistory users can import their existing Skype data. We did, and our logs and history showed up in a tree view in the Users panel in SkyHistory's left sidebar, which also displays expandable Calendar and History panels. The main window displays whatever messages or groups of messages you select or search for: All of one user's messages, for example, or an entire discussion thread. Maybe you've discussed a topic on and off over a long period of time and would like to view all the pertinent messages together. Just define a keyword search.This useful app complies fully with all Skype rules, and it won't alter your logs or records stored in Skype. Heavy Skype users will love SkyHistory, but anyone with a Skype account needs it, too.