Skype Backup

Skype is an IP telephony and video conferencing technology and messaging software used by millions of people worldwide. A lot of personal and business communication is made through Skype daily, and that's why information stored in Skype is of great value for many users. By performing regular Skype backups you can protect these data from loss and never worry about hardware and software failures, or user mistakes.

How to Back up Skype

Handy Backup features an advanced Skype Backup plug-in which is free and can be used in all editions of the program. The most current version of the plug-in supports the following operations:

• Extract and back up Skype user preferences
• Create backup of Skype messages
• Back up Skype call history backup
• Backup Skype contacts
• Locate and back up Skype passwords (see details below)
• Perform complete backup of Skype plug-ins (see details below)

All operations include all Skype accounts installed on the PC, so you don't need to log on and off several times to do back up Skype completely.

How to Back up Skype with Handy Backup

To learn about the procedure of adding backup plug-in to the program, please refer to Installing and Uninstalling Plug-ins in the User Manual. After this, all you will need to do is to select Skype during selection of data for backup. Handy Backup will automatically locate all Skype data on your computer and add it to the backup task.

Note: Skype backups may not be created properly if Skype is running. It is recommended to close Skype interface and end the process, before backing up or restoring it.

To learn about options (compression, storage to CD/DVD/FTP or other places, verification, etc.) that can be applied to backups in Handy Backup, please see the full list of Handy Backup features.

Backing up Skype Passwords

Skype's password are kept in a so-called Protectedstorage. For security reasons, Protectedstorage is encrypted with a secret key which is individual for any local PC and local user settings. Because of this, restoring Skype backup on a different computer or under a different user account doesn't "clone" Skype, as you will have to enter your passwords again. This is a great advantage, because if somebody gains access to your backup, they won't be able to use it properly under your name.

Backing up Skype Plug-ins

To back up Skype plug-ins it is necessary to close Plugin Manager (which runs with process name skypePM.exe), as otherwise Handy Backup will not be able to access their data. Before backing up or restoring plug-ins, make sure the Plugin Manager was run at least once on your computer: during the first launch it writes installation paths of plug-ins to system registry, and these paths will be used by Handy Backup for backup and restoration.

With Handy Backup making Skype backups is easy as 1-2-3!