How to copy Skype text without timestamp?

Question

Skype is so annoying to me when I try to copy text from my chat; i.e. it alsway include the timestamp when pasted.

How to copy only the plain text?

Answer 1

Follow these steps:

In Skype:

1. Go to Tools → Options → IM & SMS

2. Click Show advanced options

   

3. In Pressing Ctrl+V will select Paste message as plain text

   

4. Save

Answer 2

Windows-only Solution

I've made a quick autohotkey script that runs when you press ctrl + C inside Skype. It basically copies selected, runs a regex replace on it and stores it in your clipboard.

The regex is quite naive, and makes a few assumptions, which may not be correct as I haven't rigorously tested it:

• If there's a timestamp, it's at the very beginning of a line
• it's in square brackets and first character is a number
• there a space after it, followed by nickname, colon, and extra space

Here's the .ahk script itself. It's app-sensitive based on the ahk_class tSkMainForm, which might possibly change in the future updates of Skype.

#IfWinActive ahk_class tSkMainForm
    ^c::
        Clipboard := ""
        Send ^c
        ClipWait, 1
        if ( Clipboard ) {
            Clipboard := RegExReplace( Clipboard, "m)^\[\d.*?\] .*?: " )
        }
    Return
#IfWinActive

If you do want to keep the nickname, just remove the .*?: at the end of the regex.

Answer 3

I'm on a Mac and made a very simple little app for removing the timestamp and username from copied Skype chats. There's a "How To Use" in the linked dropbox folder. Basically it will clean up what is in your clipboard and create a new text doc, or you can paste a long list of continuous chats into a text doc and then clean up from there.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/0vlekavn5vhohvq/AAAMuDdlUxC9ev24yw0kS5kea?dl=0

I used Automator and a bash sed script to make these applets.
It looks for the timestamp brackets and an ending : pattern and removes the whole block.

Answer 4

In the latest version of Lync named Skype for Business you can triple click inside a message then copy the text with CTRL+C

This allows for copy/pasting only the message text and not the timestamp.

Answer 5

If someone is still interested, I have a workaround: right-click on the selected text, choose "search with Bing" and it will open new tab in your browser and show you plain text without timestamps and without "Jane Doe: something something".

Answer 6

A workaround for this using Notepad++ search & replace with regex

1. Paste the copied Skype message to a new file tab
2. Hit Ctrl-H to open search & replace box
3. Enter \[.+[:][ ] in Find what box
4. Check Regular expression to search with regex
5. Hit Find next to test
6. Hit Replace all to finish the job

Cheers, Nam

p.s. I have no idea why Microsoft/Skype not allow us to copy message easily.

Answer 7

As of at least Skype for Business version 15.0.4753.1000 there are two additional options for specifying to only copy the message text. Per message, and a default copy option.

Copy text only from a single message:

• Select message text with mouse for one or more messages
• Right-Click the selected text
• Select Copy Message

The text can then be pasted with Ctrl + V

Set the default copy behaviour to be text only:

• Open the options panel with Alt + T then hit O
• Select IM in the left panel
• Select the option: When copying IMS: Copy message only
• OK

Answer 8

I also find it here but this still includes the timestamp http://howto.cnet.com/8301-11310_39-57378862-285/how-to-copy-plain-text-from-skype/

Answer 9

Go to Tools » Options » IM & SMS » IM Appearance and you can uncheck the Show Time Stamp option.