HOWTO: Record Skype Conversations

[majikstreet]

Yes, it's possible. You've always wanted to. And now I can show you how.

Record conversations with skype! into mp3's!

It's amazing!

sudo apt-get install vsound sox sox-dev lame build-essential

Ok. We now have installed lame for mp3 encoding, and vsound, sox, and sox-dev for the program's dependancies. We have also installed build-essential, which will supply all the programs needed to compile programs. Cool, eh?

cd
wget http://www.twistedlittlegnome.com/skype-rec-kraken.tar
tar xvf skype-rec-kraken.tar

Now we have downloaded the program and untarred it.

cd skype-rec-kraken
make

Now, we have "made" the program.

gedit skype-rec

Now we are editing the program. Scroll down until you see "my $SKYPEREC" edit the value to something like this: /home/yourusernamehere/skype-rec-kraken/libskype-rec.so

(you may have to change that, depending where you installed the program!)

If you run skype using a command other than "skype" edit my $SKYPE to the command you use to start up skype.

./skype-rec

That will run the program, and open up skype (make sure to close down skype before using this). You call your person, then you can hang up with them, and close skype. Then, the program will convert the file to mp3.

The .mp3 file will be in the folder you installed the program to. (In my case, it was "/home/majikstreet/skype-rec-kraken/XXXXXXXX.mp3".. The name will appear odd, lol. You may want to edit the name lol.

Hope this works for you!

majikstreet

edit: posted in wiki: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SkypeRecordingHowto

[majikstreet]

I don't think many people had a chance to see this, so I am bumping it...

I also want to add that there are some other files in the folder ending with .au (I believe)... you can delete those if you want.

thanks,
majikstreet

[Evoreth]

Yaay~!!
Thank you very much!

[majikstreet]

You're so welcome

[Zhukov]

Thanks a lot!!!

[majikstreet]

Thanks a lot!!!

Glad you like it

[dickwall]

Hi

I can't tell you how long I have been looking for a way to do this in skype, however I have noticed a slight problem. While the recording sounds magnificent, I co-host a podcast where all participants record their own mic feeds, and I use skype-rec for this now. I have noticed that my recordings come out of sync with the other conversations recorded on other machines, it is not a lot, but maybe 1 second is lost every 2 minutes, and the loss is pretty constant, so gradually my mic feed moves further and further ahead of theirs until things are really out of sync.

I am wondering what could be causing this - is it perhaps the sampling rate being 48000 Hz, or is it (as I more likely suspect) that some samples are being lost by the vsound redirect because the machine is busy doing other things. Assuming it is the sample rate, how can I force this to 44100 Hz, or if it is that some samples are being dropped, how should that be handled?

Hope someone can help, otherwise I am back to windows again for the recording .

Thanks

****

[Jonathan Métillon]

That will run the program, and open up skype (make sure to close down skype before using this). You call your person, then you can hang up with them, and close skype. Then, the program will convert the file to mp3.

Thank you Majikstreet!

I did every step you said but after hanging up and closing Skype, it said:

No conversations to convert

Argh! I've lost a very important conversation here

What happened??

[haelen]

cd
wget http://www.twistedlittlegnome.com/skype-rec-kraken.tar
tar xvf skype-rec-kraken.tar

The file seems to have been moved (I got a 404)

Best,
Tim

OOps. Just found the new gz file via the wiki entry!

[Jonathan Métillon]

Yep Tim. I found it with Google, looking for "skype-rec-kraken.tar".