I like Skype very much and recommended it to many of my friends all over the world. It is really a very good stuff, to be frankly.

There is a pity that we could not backup or export our contacts, so if we need reinstall our computer, all the contacts were lost! Yahoo messenger saves its contacts on the server, so if I log in with my username and password on any other computer, I can easily use my contacts. I hope in the later we would have this feature in newer Skype.

Thanks.

You CAN backup your contacts and your configuration, but it's not "File -> Backup" and "File -> Restore", even if that would be useful for most common users.
This question appeared quite often on the forums, especially in relation to transfering contact list between platforms. And it is also somewhere in the FAQ (at least for Linux version)
The trick is to simply copy the complete "Skype" folder in your system profile.


For backup just archive that folder where you think it's safe, and copy it back when you need to restore. The only thing you need to remember is your password ;-)

I agree it's hard work to synchronize contact lists between installation (especially if you run skype in different location, like @ home and @ work...). In addition server-side contactlist has been requested quite often. But does Yahoo! or another IM program enable you to backup/restore your histories and other info? I think not, or in any case it's not easier than for skype!