Hangouts App Will Now Redirect You To Google Chat, If You’re Still Using It

Google Hangouts app will now show you the door to Google Chat. Hangouts, as we remember, was a great way to communicate with peers, especially in the work scenario. But the app never rose to the popularity Google expected and eventually, Google Chat came into existence.

Now, a recent blog post by Google shares that the Hangouts app will redirect you to Google chat. While it makes sense to phase out Google Hangouts, especially when a better communicating product exists, we will surely miss Hangouts. If you are still using the app, you will see a prompt to switch to the Google Chat app.

Hangouts Gets A Date To Hang Its Cape

Hangouts was a mere communication app with texting and file sharing features. Google Chat, however, is more than that. It is designed to be a collaborative app right from scratch. The most relatable example would be Slack, where you can communicate and collaborate with your team.

So, It makes sense for Google to push a better app that offers more than texting. Google Chat is superior to Hangouts in most ways. You get to use mentions, create spaces to collaborate with team members, and share files.

The new update will also allow you to edit the files side-by-side in the app. It will happen without opening Google Docs, and other apps in another tab.

“Conversations are automatically migrated from Hangouts to Chat, so it’s easy to pick up where you left off. However, we encourage users who wish to keep a copy of their Hangouts data to use Google Takeout to download their data,” said Ravi Kanneganti, Product Manager at Google in the official blog post.

The Google Chat app is already available within the Gmail web version. But starting today, users will see a message asking them to migrate from Hangouts to Chat. Mobile app users of Gmail will see a new Chat icon at the bottom of the app.

Similarly, the Chat app users will see an icon as well. Moreover, people who use the Hangouts browser extension will be asked to move to Chat on the web or install the Chat web app.

But Google Hangouts will continue to be available for some time before it is shut down for good. November 2022 is the date to retire Hangouts mentioned by Google but we would suggest you make the transition as soon as possible.