Displaying your Skype online status

Online status icons signify how you want the world to view you on Skype.

• Offline: Select this when you don’t want to take or make any calls. The green call button for making calls is dimmed, indicating that you cannot make calls. However, you can look up profile information about any Skype contact while in this mode.
• Online: This is the status you have (the default setting) when you log on.
• Skype Me: This mode lets everyone else on Skype know that you are interested in talking or chatting with other folks even if they do not know you. By choosing this option, you temporarily disable your privacy settings. In this way, someone can reach you without having to request that you share your contact details. When you return from Skype Me status, your privacy settings are automatically restored.
• Away or Not Available: If your computer has been idle for a while, your status changes from Online to Away or Not Available automatically until you do something, such as move the mouse on your screen. Then it returns to Online status automatically.
• An Away icon (a Skype icon with a small watch next to it) appears next to your Skype Name if there is no activity after a few minutes. Skype sets this time to five minutes, but you can change the settings to a different amount of time.
• A Not Available icon (a Skype icon with a lunar crescent — a kind of “gone to sleep” mode) appears next to your Skype Name after your computer is idle for a longer period of time. Skype sets the amount to 20 minutes, but you can change the settings to a different amount of time.
• The Away or Not Available mode tells other Skype users that you have Skype running but may have actually stepped away from the computer and are unable to respond to a call or chat. Actually, you could be snoozing at the keyboard, but nobody can tell the difference!
• Do Not Disturb: You can indicate that you don’t want to be interrupted by choosing this status. In this mode, you won’t receive any incoming calls or messages, but you can make outgoing calls.
• Invisible: This is sort of a stealth mode by which you can function as you regularly do in Online mode, making and receiving calls, participating on chats, and so on. When others on Skype look at your status, it appears that you are Offline, even though you’re not.

You can change your status anytime, with a choice of ways to do that:

• Choose File➪Change Online Status: This method makes a drop-down list of status icons appear.
• Click the Status icon at the bottom-right corner of the window: Clicking this icon brings up a drop-down list with Change Status as the first option. Click that option to open the same drop-down list that opens by clicking File➪Change Online Status.