“Call With Skype” Service for Mac OSX

Update: “Call with iPhone” now available too.

I spend a lot of time on the phone these days, and am tired of copy/pasting phone numbers into Skype’s finicky little dial pad, so I hacked together a Service for OSX to dial them for me.

Download this zip file, unpack it, and drop the Call With Skype file into ~/Library/Services/ (note for anyone using an OSX version since Lion: the Library folder is hidden…you’ll need to use the command line or go to Finder > Go and press your Option key).

Once you’ve done that, you should be able to highlight a phone number within any application, and right click to Call With Skype:

It should work for international numbers too.

Also, a tip: if you have a bunch of Services installed, “Call With Skype” might get buried under a “Services >” submenu when you right-click. Most people don’t use Services at all…if you’re in that camp you can head to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Services to disable any that you’re not using. If you disable enough of them, the submenu will disappear.

15 thoughts on ““Call With Skype” Service for Mac OSX”

my mac osx doesn’t have a services folder. Sooooo anoying…

You should be able to just create one at ~/Library/Services/.

This is awesome, thanks. Anyway to remove the “confirmation” from Skype? I just want to click and have it call . .

As best I can tell, there’s no way to remove the confirmation dialog.

I updated the protocol to “skype:” from “callto:” As I understand it, skype is Skype’s proprietary protocol, which I figured might work a little better. It’s fast, but it would be better if there was a way to kill the need to acknowledge the confirmation request.

Very cool, Paul. This works great. I was also able to add a keyboard shortcut to make it easier to trigger than wading through all of the services. I agree with the other comments about getting past Skype’s confirmation. But that’s a Skype issue.

Thanks for sharing this terrific script!

Very cool! Thank you for sharing this, Paul!

Thanks. This is useful, but it always tries to add +1 for the united states even though most of the numbers I’m calling are in the UK. Is there any way to change this?

The script assumes it’s a U.S. phone number unless the digits are preceded by a plus sign, in which case it treats the first digits as the international calling code.

Thanks for sharing, Paul! I very much appreciate little helpers like this in my day to day work!

I’m looking at it in Automator and trying to figure out what the sed command is doing. I’m very shaky on regex—could you briefly explain?
BTW I tried the “Skype:” URL and it didn’t work with the latest Skype version, while “callto:” did.
Also I modified the AppleScript so it returns the actual dial string that was used, with a space between country code and number.
For testing purposes, I inserted a “Get Selected Text” as the first block in the Automator chain. You can just enter any desired test string in it and run the action. For production use, just remove or disable the block before saving the Service.

The sed command strips any characters from the highlighted text that aren’t digits.

This works very well. Thanks.

Any thoughts on adding functionality to dial extensions or conference codes?

My most common use case is to dial a conference call number that contains a code that must be entered and the main number is dialed. Skype does not support this feature natively.

No plans. I think I looked into it originally and there wasn’t a method to make Skype pause between dialing the phone number and the extension/pin code.

Hi Paul! This is exactly what I was looking for. I’ve set it up and it works great!… in most instances. Two things:
1. As I’m in New Zealand I’ve changed the country codes – that works fine, however;
2. We have a culture here whereby area codes and mobile phone numbers are typically recorded and dialled starting with a zero…

This is not compatible with Skype. I’ve mucked around with the Applescript code you kindly shared, but I’m no programmer and basic language isn’t producing the effect required, namely:

if first character of phone number is “0” then
replace with “+64”

Are you happy to provide some advice?

charles kabold on September 6, 2011 at 4:23 pm said:

my mac osx doesn’t have a services folder. Sooooo anoying…
pmaiorana on September 6, 2011 at 6:29 pm said:

You should be able to just create one at ~/Library/Services/.
Jeff Carter on September 21, 2011 at 1:53 pm said:

This is awesome, thanks. Anyway to remove the “confirmation” from Skype? I just want to click and have it call . .
pmaiorana on September 22, 2011 at 4:21 am said:

As best I can tell, there’s no way to remove the confirmation dialog.
Syd Salmon on January 24, 2012 at 11:48 pm said:

I updated the protocol to “skype:” from “callto:” As I understand it, skype is Skype’s proprietary protocol, which I figured might work a little better. It’s fast, but it would be better if there was a way to kill the need to acknowledge the confirmation request.
Alan on July 9, 2012 at 11:21 pm said:

Very cool, Paul. This works great. I was also able to add a keyboard shortcut to make it easier to trigger than wading through all of the services. I agree with the other comments about getting past Skype’s confirmation. But that’s a Skype issue.

Thanks for sharing this terrific script!
Reiner Bruns on March 26, 2013 at 3:37 pm said:

Very cool! Thank you for sharing this, Paul!
James on May 20, 2013 at 12:35 pm said:

Thanks. This is useful, but it always tries to add +1 for the united states even though most of the numbers I’m calling are in the UK. Is there any way to change this?
pmaiorana on May 28, 2013 at 2:04 pm said:

The script assumes it’s a U.S. phone number unless the digits are preceded by a plus sign, in which case it treats the first digits as the international calling code.
Bassim on January 31, 2014 at 11:10 am said:

Thanks for sharing, Paul! I very much appreciate little helpers like this in my day to day work!
Rob Lewis on April 2, 2014 at 4:10 am said:

I’m looking at it in Automator and trying to figure out what the sed command is doing. I’m very shaky on regex—could you briefly explain?
BTW I tried the “Skype:” URL and it didn’t work with the latest Skype version, while “callto:” did.
Also I modified the AppleScript so it returns the actual dial string that was used, with a space between country code and number.
For testing purposes, I inserted a “Get Selected Text” as the first block in the Automator chain. You can just enter any desired test string in it and run the action. For production use, just remove or disable the block before saving the Service.
pmaiorana on April 4, 2014 at 9:55 pm said:

The sed command strips any characters from the highlighted text that aren’t digits.
John on February 17, 2015 at 9:44 pm said:

This works very well. Thanks.

Any thoughts on adding functionality to dial extensions or conference codes?

My most common use case is to dial a conference call number that contains a code that must be entered and the main number is dialed. Skype does not support this feature natively.
pmaiorana on February 18, 2015 at 1:58 am said:

No plans. I think I looked into it originally and there wasn’t a method to make Skype pause between dialing the phone number and the extension/pin code.
Jeremy Best on August 27, 2015 at 11:02 pm said:

Hi Paul! This is exactly what I was looking for. I’ve set it up and it works great!… in most instances. Two things:
1. As I’m in New Zealand I’ve changed the country codes – that works fine, however;
2. We have a culture here whereby area codes and mobile phone numbers are typically recorded and dialled starting with a zero…

This is not compatible with Skype. I’ve mucked around with the Applescript code you kindly shared, but I’m no programmer and basic language isn’t producing the effect required, namely:

if first character of phone number is “0” then
replace with “+64”

Are you happy to provide some advice?

/Notes

“Call With Skype” Service for Mac OSX

15 thoughts on ““Call With Skype” Service for Mac OSX”

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