The best Skype and Microsoft Teams export viewer you'll ever find. SkypeLens transforms your exported chat data into a native-like recreation of Skype's interface – right in your browser.
Skype shut down on 5th May 2025, leaving millions of users with years of conversation history locked in difficult-to-read JSON files. Microsoft's official Skype viewer was already severely limited before the shutdown:
- Cannot handle large JSON conversation files – Crashes or hangs with files over 100MB, making it useless for users with years of chat history
- Poor, outdated UI – Barely functional interface that's harder to navigate than the original Skype
- Missing media support – Images and videos don't display properly
- No translation support – Multilingual conversations become unreadable
- Broken HTML rendering – Links and formatted text display as raw HTML entities instead of proper content
SkypeLens solves all of these problems whilst Microsoft pushes users toward Teams without providing proper archival tools. Your Skype memories deserve better than Microsoft's abandoned parser.
- 🎨 Skype-like Interface – A UI recreation with dark/light themes matching the original Skype design
- 🔒 Privacy First – Everything processes locally in your browser; no data ever sent to servers
- 🚀 No File Size Limits – Handles massive
messages.jsonfiles (500MB+) with streaming parser and virtual scrolling - 🖼️ Full Media Support – Upload entire Skype export folder to view images, videos, and all media files alongside conversations
- 🧩 Teams export support – Also works with Microsoft Teams exports that share the same (or very similar)
messages.jsonstructure - 🔍 Message Search – Search within conversations with real-time filtering, match highlighting, and result navigation
- ⚡ Performance Optimised – Virtual scrolling, lazy loading, and memory-efficient rendering for smooth browsing
| Type | Description |
|---|---|
💬 RichText |
Standard text messages with HTML formatting |
🌐 Translation |
Automatically shows correct language based on sender |
👥 ThreadActivity |
System messages (member additions, settings changes) |
📞 Event/Call |
Call logs with duration and participant information |
ℹ️ Notice |
System notifications and announcements |
🃏 PopCard |
Card-based notifications |
🖼️ UriObject |
Image messages with thumbnails |
📎 Media_GenericFile |
File attachments |
🎥 Media_Video |
Video messages with preview support |
📝 Text |
Legacy text messages (fallback support) |
🔗 InviteFreeRelationshipChanged |
Relationship change notifications |
SkypeLens intelligently processes Skype's built-in translation feature:
- Messages you sent – Displays the original message in your language
- Messages you received – Shows the translated message in your language
- Automatic detection – Parses translation metadata from message content without manual configuration
Note: Translation support only works with Skype exports. Teams exports lack translation metadata.
- Format Support – Displays common image formats (JPG, PNG, GIF) and video formats (MP4, AVI)
- Thumbnail Strip – Browse all media in a conversation with scrollable thumbnails and position counter
- Image Viewer – Zoom from 0.5× to 5× with mouse wheel, pan by dragging when zoomed in
- Keyboard Controls – Navigate with arrow keys, zoom with
+/-/0, download media, close withEscape
- Go to https://go.skype.com/export (Skype) or https://teams.live.com/dataexport (Teams)
- Request your data export
- Download and extract the archive when ready
(Teams export is for personal Microsoft accounts on Teams.)
-
Open SkypeLens in your browser
-
Choose your upload method:
- Conversations only – Drag and drop
messages.jsonor click to select it - Full media support – Click "Select Export Directory" and choose the entire extracted Skype export folder
- Conversations only – Drag and drop
-
Browse your conversations with the familiar Skype interface!
- Bun (recommended) or Node.js 18+
# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/thongtech/skypelens.git
cd skypelens
# Install dependencies
bun install
# Start development server
bun run dev
# Build for production
bun run build
- Development: http://localhost:5173
- Production: Build files in
dist/directory
Contributions welcome! Please open an issue first to discuss major changes.