Skype now supports calling 911 from your PC in the United States

What you need to know

• Skype now supports emergency calling from the United States.
• The feature lets you contact 911 and share your location with emergency operators.
• Skype also gained support for longer voice messages and a handful of other new features in a recent update.

Microsoft recently shipped an update for the desktop version of Skype that adds support for emergency calling in the United States. Skype users can now call 911 and share their location information with emergency operators through their PCs. The same update also allows voice messages of up to five minutes and adds a handful of other new features.

Skype also supports calling emergency services from the desktop in Australia, Denmark, Finland, and the UK. The communication app supports a much longer list of countries when it comes to contacting emergency services from mobile devices.

The addition of emergency calling support on the desktop came as part of an update that brings the app to version 8.80. Here's the changelog:

• There's time now! The time limit on voice messages has increased from 2 minutes to 5 minutes. Learn more about how to send a voice message in Skype.
• When "Wow" just doesn't cover it: We added the ability to have custom reactions on mobile. Learn more about how to react in a call on Skype for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Web.
• Lighten up: When you choose a light or dark theme in Skype, it will reflect during your Skype call. Learn more about how to change your theme in Skype.
• Get a closer look: Now you can zoom in on the share screen. Learn more about what you can do during a Skype call.
• Emergency calling: You can now make emergency calls from Skype in the United States. Learn more about emergency calling support in Skype for the United States.
• Bug fixes and stability improvements. We called the exterminator and got rid of some bugs.

Microsoft outlines the limitations of emergency calling support in a support document. Notably, you may need to allow location sharing to use the feature.