Part of me was hoping that when the end finally came for Hangouts that there would be a bigger deal made of it. Not necessarily a celebration, but at least an acknowledgement from Google that the messaging app so many of us have used for the past decade was being laid to rest. That doesn’t appear to be in the plans, as Google is quietly telling Hangouts users it is time to let the app go.
After making Google Chat – the replacement for Hangouts – readily available to everyone in June, Google then told its Workspace customers that they were about to force them off of Hangouts and onto Chat if they didn’t manually opt-out of the change. The date they set for that change was August 16, which we are quickly approaching. As that date approaches, Google has started to strongly urge all Hangouts users to leave the app and either head into the Google Chat app or into Gmail, where Chat also lives.
Opening the Hangouts app today should look like the screen below, where it’s suggesting you move over to Chat because “Hangouts is going away soon.” This isn’t the official end, because you can close that screen and keep using Hangouts, but if you “Go to Chat in Gmail,” you’ll be signed out of Hangouts and use Chat going forward.
Of course, as the screen tells you, all of your Hangouts conversations have already been moved to Google Chat. If you do make the switch, you should be able to pick up right where you left off in Hangouts. Just be aware that opening the app will certainly bring you a newer more modern messaging experience that will look somewhat familiar, yet very different.
Maybe we’ll get a bit of a party. This is a big deal. Hangouts was life for a long time. I don’t miss it after switching to Telegram a few months ago, but it deserves more than a quiet death.
Google Play Link: Google Chat
Make a chat app better than Hangouts and I will, so far I haven’t seen it.
Then Google should kill it.
Chat is mostly OKish, but unless I’m missing it there’s no button to audio call a contact. I used that a lot in Hangouts. Thanks Google! Wouldn’t be a Google “upgrade” without making it worse somehow.
I don’t use Hangouts or Chat, so forgive my ignorance here, but what exactly is the point of having either when Google Messages does SMS/MMS/RCS and can initiate both audio and video calls?
I haven’t used it but my guess would be a better experience. I have a group message with another Android user and two iphone users. Pictures and video are always low quality. I convinced them years ago to get hangouts, then allo. Both were killed. I’m not gonna try to convince them to go to another Google product
Don’t worry, Google. I stopped using Hangouts over five years ago, and the accumulation of your poor decisions drove me to iOS, and the product you should have shamelessly copied many years ago: iMessage.
They got what they wanted. My friends group stopped using hangouts and went to Signal.
Same…we all made the switch over to Signal ~ a year or so ago
Same as well. And with Signal you can send videos between android and iPhone that doesn’t look like your sending a random blurb of pixels.
same- we all switched over to discord
I moved most of my family from Hangouts to Allo when it was announced, but after that was quickly killed off we switched to Signal and have been there ever since.
Sucks that Google Chat does not support Android Auto like Google Hangouts, so here’s to folks putzing with the phone whilst driving 🙁
no way, it doesn’t? That is a spectacular fail
Forcibly moving everyone over to a new app would be one thing – but putting the chat INSIDE the Gmail App??? This is such a terrible move.
There is a separate Chat app you can install and you can turn on/off the Chat feature inside the Gmail app. They only giving you the option if you want it all in one location or separate apps. Not difficult
It wouldn’t be difficult, if the link inside Hangouts actually directed you to the new app. Instead, it sends you to Gmail Chat and acts as if that is their new solution. It is not intuitive, therefore I would argue that it actually is difficult.
just search for Google Chat in the Play Store. It comes up immediately! Again, not difficult.
Not every user is the same. For example, I previously used Hangouts to communicate with my 74 year old father. He is not nearly tech-savvy enough to go to the Play Store, find the new app, install it, and then disable the notifications for Hangouts. Google could have easily made this process smoother so I would not have had to do this for him. Had the link automatically installed the new app and then disabled Hangouts, you would be correct and it would not be difficult. But, that is not how Google chose to do things.
Meh.. I stopped replying heavily on Hangouts with the original announcement. Being able to now go down to 1 app for mail and chat is nice. Save me some app drawer real estate.
God, Google is really torturing people. Everyone’s data has already been migrated over from Hangouts to Chat, just shut it down and replace it already. Stop making it so dramatic. They didn’t do half of this hand holding when they shuttered InBox. It’s done.