Users who simply signed up for a Skype account can delete their Skype accounts without affecting anything else, but deleting a Skype account you signed up for with a Microsoft account will also delete the Microsoft account you signed up with. However, before Microsoft accounts were a thing, you could simply sign up for a Skype account. Today, you can only sign up for Skype with a Microsoft account.

Here’s everything you have to do in order to successfully close your Skype account and to do so the right way: Phase 1: Unlink your Microsoft account and your Skype account

If you change your mind within the 30-day period, you can simply cancel the deletion by signing in to Skype’s My Accountpage with the Skype account that is scheduled for deletion. Microsoft says the 30-day grace period is for you to reconsider closing your account or need to access any data stored on or associated with your Skype account before all of it is gone forever. Skype doesn’t have some magical button that you can press and your account will be deleted – wouldn’t that be just way too easy? There’s a lot you have to do in order to prepare a Skype account for permanent closure and then contact Microsoft to apply for the account in question to be deleted, and even then it’ll be 30 days before the account is actually deleted.

Closing your Skype account for good has become an ordeal that involves multiple steps, after completing which the user still has to wait 30 days for their account to be permanently deleted from Skype’s directory and Microsoft’s servers.

No social media platform wears its account deletion option as a badge of honor, which is understandable, but Microsoft’s approach to the entire Skype account closing process is overkill. Microsoft has, for whatever reason, made closing and completely deleting a Skype account way more elaborate and complex than it has to be.

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