Skype also offers voicemail and custom phone number services. Thanks to Lifehacker for the pointer about adding your Google Voice Caller ID to Skype.Do you hate having to pay tons of money just to make short phone calls home while you travel? Whether you’re in stylish London, futuristic Shanghai, or off-the-beaten path India, make voice and video calls from your Skype account whenever you’re using a computer or mobile device that’s connected to the Internet. This is all nice on the desktop, but what about mobile users? Android users can use its native app, and iPhone users have a Web app for Google Voice. When Google acquired Gizmo, they shut down signups for new accounts, so you need to already have a Gizmo account to use it. Indeed, they're reportedly testing out the software internally. Gizmo is a company that Google acquired, and presumably the Google elves are hard at work in their hollow tree working on converting Gizmo into a Google Voice desktop client.

I just learned about this option a few hours ago, I'm still trying it out. This eliminates the need to purchase a Skype number. Yet another alternative: Forward your Google Voice calls to Gizmo, and your Gizmo calls to Skype. I've found it doesn't work very well, but maybe you'll have better luck with it. I've seen various workarounds to connect Google Voice with Skype using Internet voice protocols, but I've found they don't work well.Īs another alternative, Google offers its own Skype alternative, called Gizmo. But what if you want to receive Google Voice calls through Skype? The only practical way I've found is to purchase a Skype phone number ($18 for three months, or $60 for a full year), and set your Google Voice to ring that number. So now you can make outgoing calls using Skype, and have the recipients of those calls see your Google Voice number. Google said in an e-mail that there were technical barriers to receiving text messages from Skype, which have now been resolved. This feature has been available from Skype for cell phones and other services, but it has not been available for Google Voice until now. Skype says it takes 24 hours to activate. Enter that verification code into the Skype Caller ID Web page, and you're done. Skype will send an SMS with a verification code to Google Voice. There, you can set any of your phone numbers as the Caller ID number seen by the people you call using Skype. Next, go to the Account page, and click Caller ID.

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