While Google encourages everyone to make the switch to Chat, Hangouts on the web will continue to be available until later this year.
In October 2020, Google announced that Google Chat would be available for everyone without any cost. Since then, people could continue using Hangouts or upgrade to Google Chat — available as its own app or within Gmail — to take advantage of its features and integration with other Workspace products. Now the company has announced new steps to help remaining Hangouts users move to Chat.
First, starting today, people using Hangouts on mobile will see an in-app screen asking them to move to Chat in Gmail or the Chat app. Similarly, people who use the Hangouts Chrome extension will be asked to move to Chat on the web or install the Chat web app. In July, people who use Hangouts in Gmail on the web will be upgraded to Chat in Gmail.
While the tech giant encourages everyone to make the switch to Chat, Hangouts on the web will continue to be available until later this year. Users will see an in-product notice at least a month before Hangouts on the web starts redirecting to Chat on the web.
For most people, conversations are automatically migrated from Hangouts to Chat, so it’s easy to pick up where you left off. However, Google encourages users who wish to keep a copy of their Hangouts data to use Google Takeout to download their data before Hangouts is no longer available in November 2022.
"We have continued to invest in Chat to help people better collaborate and express themselves, and now we are taking steps to help remaining Hangouts users move to Chat," Ravi Kanneganti, Product Manager, Google Chat, said in a blogpost.
“Switching to Chat also makes expressing yourself more fun, whether you’re using emojis with skin-tone selections, rich text editing to give your chats emphasis, @mentions to notify someone in the group or sending a GIF. Now everyone can find just the right way to chime in.” he added.
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