Free Google Hangouts users are now asked to migrate to Google Chat
In March this year, all Google Workspace users started getting migrated from Hangouts to Google Chat, and now the Hangouts app is going away for free users as well.
That doesn’t exactly come as a surprise given the fact that Google has been working on replacing Hangouts with Google Chat since the distant 2019. The migration for Workspace users took some months to complete, but now it’s done and it’s time for Google to turn its gaze on free users.
Your previous conversations should be automatically migrated… at least for most people, but some conversations or part of conversations won’t automatically move to the new Chat. Google has announced it will be emailing the impacted users with more info around September of this year.
Additionally, users who chat with the Hangouts Chrome extension will be directed to Chat on the web. Later in July, the users who were using Hangouts via Gmail’s sidebar (on the web) will also be upgraded to Chat in Gmail.
However, the hangouts.google.com client will remain available until October 2022, and if you’re using it, you will get a one-month warning before it gets thrown into the Google Graveyard.
You will have until November to download a copy of your Hangouts data using Google Takeout.
But it’s not all grim R.I.P. ceremonies for Google Hangouts. Actually, it seems this change is for the better: the Mountain View tech giant has some pretty big ambitions for the future of Chat. The app will be getting direct calling, in-line Spaces threading, and the ability to share and view multiple images soon, so Hangouts users will be greeted by an app with some big potential.
That’s not the only transition with Google apps that has been going on recently. Google Duo is now getting replaced by Meet. Basically, this unification will provide a more streamlined Google experience for communications: Meet will be for video and Chat for messages.
