Skype finally syncs notifications across all platforms, remedying its biggest flaw

Skype is rolling out a multi-platform update that it promises will make for a more seamless experience across multiple devices, and rectifies one of the most frustrating parts of using the chat platform.

Announced in a blog post today, Skype said it was revamping its platform for its “mobile future” and that Skype chat “is a huge part of that future”.

To that end, users of multiple devices will get synced chat messages across all of them and will also now get read notifications synced across devices. So, it doesn’t matter when or where you sent a chat message from, you’ll see it on all devices and know when the ones you sent have been read.

Users will also now get push messages informing them they’ve got a new chat message regardless of platform.

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As well as these tweaks to chat, Skype said it has been working to generally optimize mobile performance and that users should now see improved battery life, as well as quicker startup and resume times.

In future, Skype said it wants to make it so you only receive notification messages on the device you’re actively using, to save on duplication, and that users Favorite contact lists will be synced across devices too.

Notably, the effort from Skype to enhance its chat experience specifically – given that it’s best known for audio and video calling – come in the face of the rapid growth of rival messaging services that are now expanding into audio and video. It only makes sense that Skype extends its services to face the competition and cement itself as a viable option across all forms of communication too.

It doesn’t come a minute too soon, either – the company has been promising some of these improvements since April last year and a lack of syncing has led to some users abandoning the service already. Perhaps these improvements could tempt a few back.

➤ Skype