Tip of the Week: How to Hide Yourself from Skype

In a recent update, Microsoft added Skype to the taskbars of many PCs. While many may believe that they don’t use Skype, they actually have an account because it is tied to their Microsoft account. If you don’t want people to be able to find you on the video chatting service, you’re going to want to follow the instructions we’ve outlined here.

While Skype can be very useful to those who want to use it, it can be an irritation to those that don’t. Fortunately, there are some settings you can adjust to conceal your contact information from others, helping to prevent unwanted Skype calls, messages, and requests from coming in.

First, you’ll need to access Skype, and once logged in (which you may be by default) you should check your Options by clicking the three-dot button, found in the top-left of the window.

From there, click into Settings, then Contacts before accessing Privacy. From here, you’ll want to deactivate a few options. To properly conceal your account from other users, make sure to do the following:

• Toggle Receive suggestions to off.
• Toggle Appear in suggestions to off.
• Toggle Appear in search results to off.
• Next to where your phone number appears, switch Enabled to Disabled.

This way, other users won’t be able to find your account through a simple search, effectively eliminating the chance that you’ll be disturbed by an unexpected Skype request.

At Walsh IT Group, we prioritize protecting your data and privacy, because it really is important to do. If you would like assistance in securing your business from data theft or other unfortunate circumstances, reach out to us at (832) 295-1445.