Google Chat To Replace Classic Hangouts From March 22

After a series of speculations and tentative deadlines, Google has finally decided to move from classic Hangouts to Google Chats for Workspace (formerly G Suite) users from March, 22 this year. Earlier, the process was supposed to start from October 2019, but it couldn’t begin until 2020. Google has made this announcement in its blogpost.

“Beginning March 22, 2022, we’ll turn on the “Chat preferred” setting for any customers who haven’t already done so, making Google Chat the default chat application,” said Google in the blog post. 

The company further mentioned that during this process, when the users will open classic Hangouts in Gmail whether on the web or the mobile apps, then they will be directed to Chat.

The blog post also states that ‘it is not possible to opt-out of the change’. However, Hangouts.google.com will continue to work while apps for both android and iOS will stop working. But, there will be no fear of losing data or the chat history for users as Google has moved it to Google Chat.

According to the post, if an organization’s admin console setting is still set at ‘Chat and classic Hangouts’ process of upgrading to ‘Chat preferred’ will take place over the course of three weeks that will start from March 22.

Also, if the admin console setting is set at ‘Classic Hangouts Only’, the migration may take place over the course of five weeks that will start from April 4.

“After domains are upgraded to ‘Chat preferred,’ all classic Hangouts applications, except hangouts.google.com, will be disabled. Additionally, the ‘Chat and classic Hangouts’ and ‘Classic Hangouts only’ settings will be removed from the Admin console,” the company said in the post.

The company has also mentioned, 

“Except for a few special cases, all the conversation history from Hangouts will be available in Google Chat. However, starting mid-March 2022, any newly created spaces in Google Chat within your domain will not appear in classic Hangouts.” 

This means that messages sent to another user in such spaces can only appear in Google Chat. Also, as per the post, there will be no end-user setting for the feature.

It also says that the change may only affect the Workspace users, legacy G Suite Basic and Business customers, for now, meaning that it will only have an impact on the users who are using the service for their business or organization.

Google Chat

Google Chat, introduced by the tech giant Google in March 2017 is a communication software preferably built for teams that provide direct messages, team chat rooms, and a function that allows users to share content from Google Drive.

Initially, the service was only available to the users of Google Workspaces. However, with its plan to move completely from Hangouts to Google Chat, the company made it available to all consumers in 2021.