Voicemail Problems with Skype

For small businesses in need of only a few phone numbers, Skype is a great value. I pay about $60/year for a phone number that rings wherever I’m logged into Skype, plus voicemail. When it works, which is almost all of the time, it’s fantastic.

The trouble is “almost all of the time.” So for Googlers benefit, here are three problems I’ve had with Skype voicemail over the last couple of years that aren’t answered by Skype’s FAQ and unlikely to get a straight answer from tech support in the first response.

These solutions are for the Mac client, but can probably be adapted to Windows. I doubt the files are different, but the paths to them will be.

Can’t hear any audio when you listen to a voicemail?

Calls go to voicemail immediately, without ringing?

For both of these, quit Skype, then delete the file ~/Library/Application Support/Skype/shared.xml.

Unanswered calls not going to voicemail?

Quit Skype. Open ~/Library/Application Support/Skype/your-user-name/config.xml in a text editor. Look for:

<Call>
  ...
  <NoAnswerTimeout>10</NoAnswerTimeout>
  ...
</Call>

The number is the delay, in seconds, before Skype will do something with the call. If this is missing, Skype won’t send the call to voicemail.