Skype has helped a lot of people communicate better online. While you may think that you are already familiar with its main features, you may not be aware that it still has a whole other bag of tricks that may help you improve your Skype experience even further. Here are some secret Skype tips that should make it more fun to chat, text and call.

Prioritize your chats with Keyword Notification

Do you chat with multiple persons at the same time? It might be difficult to identify which chat window to prioritize. Skype can help you with that by notifying you if someone puts certain words into the chat window. For example, if you want to be notified if someone types in “urgent” or “very important”, you can set up Skype to do that.

To activate this feature, go to Tools then Notifications/Alerts menu. Enter the keywords into the IM box. Skype will notify you real-time when one of your contacts types any of those keywords.

Show your activity in a chat window

You can type a short status message on the chat window to let your Skype contacts know what you are up to. Type in /me and your current activity and hit enter. For example, you can type in “/me is doing something right now” and it will display “YOUR NAME is doing something right now”. Try it now.

Send any file to your contacts

Sometimes, you need to send a file quickly while chatting with someone. If you don’t have time to switch to your email window, you can simply drag a file into the individual or group chat window and the file is instantly shared through Skype. The recipient can download the file by clicking on “Accept”.

Edit/Delete the message you sent by mistake

Everyone is guilty about typing something into a chat window by mistake. You probably did not know that you can either edit or delete a message you sent by accident. If you sent your boss a message intended for your boyfriend, you can easily delete the message. If you had a typo error in the chat box, you can edit the word.

On the chat window, right-click on the message you need to modify or delete. Select “Edit Message” or “Remove Message”.

Create a line break for long messages

If you want to type in a long message but still want to follow a certain spacing format, you can create a line break. Just hold down the shift key and hit enter after the message that needs a line break.

Switch off animated emoticons

Not everyone enjoys animated emoticons. If you are one of them, you can deactivate the animation by simply going to Tools > Options > IM and SMS. Uncheck the box for “Show animated emoticons”.

Edit the name of your contact

Some Skype users have too many contacts. They want to be able to identify a Skype user easily. You can do so by editing the way name of your contact is displayed. If you want to put a prefix, like for example “Work – Michael”, you may do so. Just select the contact, type in the name you want to appear on Skype.