Google has announced that as of today, people who are still using Hangouts on mobile will see an in-app prompt asking them to switch to Gmail Chat or the Chat app. The company says the new reminder will help remaining users switch to Chat as Google moves toward officially shutting down Hangouts in November.
The company says people using the Hangouts for Chrome extension will be asked to switch to Web Chat or install the Chat web app. In July, people who use Hangouts in Gmail on the web will be upgraded to Gmail Chat. Google notes that while it’s encouraging people to switch to Chat, Hangouts on the web will continue to be available through the end of the year. Users will see an in-product message at least a month before Hangouts on the web begins to redirect to Web Chat.
Image credits: Google
The company says that while chats will automatically switch from Hangouts to Chat for most people, it’s encouraging users who want to keep a copy of their data to use Google Takeout to download the data. theirs before Hangouts was gone.
“Google Chat delivers a modern and integrated experience in Google Workspace,” Ravi Kanneganti, product manager for Google Chat, said in a blog post. “We have big ambitions for the future of Chat, and in the coming months you’ll see even more features like direct calling, inline streaming in Spaces, and the ability to share and view multiple images. As we take this final step toward bringing the rest of the Hangouts users to Chat, we hope users appreciate our continued investment in making Chat such a strong place. powerful to create and collaborate. “
Google says that switching to Chat will give users a better way to connect and collaborate with others. It notes that users can edit Docs, Slides or Sheets by side-by-side editing. Chat will also give users access to Spaces, a place dedicated to topic collaboration. Users will also have access to @mentions to notify someone in the group and will also have the ability to send GIFs.
Today’s announcement comes as Google said in October 2020 that it will allow people move from Hangouts to Chat free. Chat was originally a Slack-like messaging service for business users, but has since become free for consumers.
