Skype Backup

Skype is one of the most popular IP telephony, video conferencing and instant messaging software that offers free calls between users. It is cross-platform and is available for both Windows, Mac OS and Linux systems. The new Skype Backup plug-in was designed to back up Skype data, through the use of the common Handy Backup GUI.

Program versions: tested with Skype 3.8 and 4.0

Will be backed up: user preferences, message and call history, contacts, passwords, plugins

Author: Handy Backup team

Release Date: August 07, 2009

How to Back up Skype with Handy Backup

There are several important aspects of the implementation of the Skype Backup plug-in that you need to keep in mind for successful backup and restore:

• In order to back up/restore Skype data, the program's user interface must be closed and the process itself must be killed.


• In order to back up Skype plugins, its Plugin Manager (process name skypePM.exe) must not run.


• To restore Skype plugins, make sure that Plugin Manager has been run at least once on your system (important if you want to restore data above a freshly installed Skype).


• Skype's Protectedstorage is encrypted with a key that is interlinked with local machine and local user settings, so it can't be read and restored to a different PC or under a different user account.