Google Hangouts was, until now, Google’s chat tool. At first, it was shown as something like an alternative to WhatsApp, but the reality is that it had never really competed with the almighty Meta app, and its use was almost limited to professional environments. But if you are one of those who do use it, you will have to find an alternative. And it is that, although Google had already warned that this tool had little life left, now we already have the exact date on which we will stop using it.
NOVEMBER, THE DATE OF GOODBYE TO HANGOUTS
If you are a Hangouts user, the date you will stop using Hangouts is next Novembe. But so you don’t have to make the switch from one day to the next, Google will start next July to encourage its users to switch to Chat, the new application that will have favorite features. Thus, you will have several months ahead before having to stop using it permanently.
Since last February, Google has already begun to migrate users who used Hangouts from the Workspace. The novelty now is that it will also be trying to get private users to leave the tool. There will be several months in which this transition will be carried out, but when the month of November arrives, the popular Google chat application will have disappeared definitively. But you can rest easy because Google ensures that they will notify you at least one month before you make the change.
AND WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO MY HANGOUTS CONVERSATIONS?
As we have mentioned, Google is not going to leave us without a chat tool, it is simply going to favor a move from Hangouts to Chat .
Once you’ve moved to the latter, your Hangouts conversations will automatically appear there . Therefore, if you are determined to continue using Chat, you do not need to do anything, since you will continue to have all the messages you had.
However, Google also allows you to back up all your Hangouts chats through the Takeout service . So, if you’re not sure you want to continue using Chats but you also don’t want to lose all the conversations you had in Google chat, you always have the possibility to download a copy of your chats to have it at hand if you need it.
But, as we have mentioned, if you are going to continue using Chat this will not be necessary and your conversations will be transferred automatically. Google’s idea is to make the transition as comfortable as possible , so that the change from one application to another is not too annoying.
WHAT CAN WE EXPECT FROM GOOGLE CHAT
Google Chat is an application that is designed more for professional environments than for chatting with our friends. But the reality is that its operation is very similar to that of any messaging application. Thus, it has the possibility of creating group chats to do teamwork or of sending direct messages so that we can have a slightly more personal conversation.
One of the strengths of this application is that it allows you to easily send content created with the Google office suite . The ease of sharing documents from Docs or a table from Sheets makes it ideal for group work. And its search engine is also quite remarkable, with which we can find conversations and content that we have shared quite easily. For the professional world, another very interesting point is that you can coordinate the calendars of all users and schedule meetings at a time when everyone is available.