Big change coming! Google Chat to replace Google Hangouts for workspace users soon

Google is all ready to migrate from the classic Google Hangouts to Google Chat. Workspace users will no longer be able to use Google Hangouts from March.

Google to disable all classic Hangouts apps next month.  (Google)

Google is all set to move into the final phase of the migration from Classic Google Hangouts to Google Chat for Google Workspace customers. The tech giant has announced it will make Google Chat the default chat application from March 22, 2022. The "Chat preferred" setting will be turned on for the customers who have not already done so. "This means that when users visit classic Hangouts in Gmail on the web or the classic Hangouts mobile apps, they will be directed to Chat," the company said in a blogpost.

As per the report, the Hangouts.google.com will continue to work while all classic Hangouts applications on android or iOS will be disabled once the domains are upgraded to "Chat preferred". However, users can export their classic Hangouts and Chat data. Additionally, the "Chat and classic Hangouts" and "Classic Hangouts only" settings will also be removed from the Admin console. Moreover, the users need not to worry about losing chat history in Hangout as Google has already moved it to the Google chat.

Notably the migration from Hangout to Google chat will only be applicable for workspace users and it will not affect people using free personal chat space. Also, the messages sent in classic Hangouts will continue to be retained and held as per the policies set for Chat. It will be searchable and exportable with Gmail search in Vault.

The tech giant also mentioned that except for a few special cases, all the conversation history from Hangouts will be made available in Google Chat. However, from mid-March 2022, any newly created spaces in Google Chat within the domain will not appear in classic Hangouts. This ,means the messages sent in these spaces will only appear in Google Chat not in Hangout. Earlier the work space administrators were allowed to use both Hangout as well as Google Chat for end users.