tiny shiny dreams.

How to switch Macs and take your Skype chat history with you.

Let’s assume you’ve just got yourself a shiny new Mac and would like to know, how to migrate your Skype chat history from your old Mac to the new one.
There’s indeed no history export-import option in Skype, and since I’ve just been unable to track down an appropriate “how to transfer Skype chat history” tutorial online, I’ll try to save you the trouble of wasting 3 hours of your precious little life and write one down myself.
Have no fear, it’s easy-peasy. Really.

First, let’s gather your whole Skype chat history on your old Mac, into an archive we can migrate:

1. Locate your chat archive on your old Mac: open Finder, click the “Go” button in the toolbar, and select “Go to Folder”. 
2. A window opens. Type in the following command: ~/Library/Application Support. Then hit enter.
3. You should now be looking at a bunch of folders. Find the one called “Skype” - right-click on it and select “Compress “Skype”. Go make yourself a cup of tea until it zips all your wordy ramblings together into a ZIP file called “Skype.zip”
4. Pat yourself on the back and figure out how can you transfer the ZIP file onto your NEW Mac puter. Can you use a USB stick, Dropbox sync, even email perhaps? All depends on the size of your file.

Let’s now pull your chat history over to your brand new, shiny Mac:

1. Make sure you don’t have a Skype running on it yet. The application can be installed, but NOT running.
2. Locate the new home for your chats on the new Mac: open Finder, click the “Go” button in the toolbar, then select “Go to Folder”. 
3. Again, a window opens. Type in the following command: ~/Library/Application Support. Then hit enter.
4. You might already see a “Skype” folder in there (if you’ve already installed Skype on your new Mac), or not - no worries. So now just extract the ZIP file you’ve just created on your old Mac into the new location - overwrite the whole old Skype folder with the new one, or just create a brand new “Skype” folder, and you’re all set.
5. Voila! You may now run Skype on your new Mac, enjoy your chat history and be amazed at your 1337 skillz.

However, please note:

• This action will overwrite ALL of your existing history, so you should do the migration as early into owning the puter as possible, before you’ve created some important fresh logs on your new Mac.
• If you’ve set your Skype to log in automatically, you have to enter your credentials at least once since those are kept in your Mac’s Keychain and thus do not travel with your archive. (hint: if you’ve forgotten your password, Keychain is a good place to start your search mission) - thanks for the tip, Sepp:)

Let me know how it goes! :)