Oath, a subsidiary of Verizon Communications announced that they will soon be shutting down Yahoo Messenger. Users will not be able to access it after July 17.

Well, you may think chatting spheres like Yahoo Messenger and MSN are redundant and age-old, but there have been loyal users. “We know we have many loyal fans who have used Yahoo Messenger since its beginning as one of the first chat apps of its kind,” the statement reads. “As the communications landscape continues to change over, we’re focusing on building and introducing new, exciting communications tools that better fit consumer needs.”

However there is good news too, users are now encouraged to sign up on Squirrel, which the company has been quietly beta-testing since May. Squirrel is currently invite-only, but hopefully, the app will be open to the public by the time Yahoo Messenger gets shuttered. Those interested in using it can get the invite code by following the instructions on the website.

Hence, if you don’t want to lose your chat history and want to store them, they have given a 6 months notice to save all the data you want. However, you’ll not be able to port the data to another app.

This is a logical move given the widespread advancement in communication apps. Let’s see what they have in store for future.