Tech giant Google has announced that it is now beginning the process of migrating free, personal Hangouts users to Chat, which it announced in October 2020.
The company mentioned that users who want to keep a copy of their Hangouts data will use Google Takeout — to download their data before Hangouts goes offline in November 2022.
“We’ve continued to invest in Chat to help people collaborate and express themselves better, and now we’re taking steps to help the remaining Hangouts users make the switch to Chat,” said Ravi Kanneganti, product manager, Google Chat. in a blog post.
Google said the move to Google Chat will allow users to edit documents, slides or sheets side-by-side, making it easier to collaborate while the conversation continues. It also includes Spaces, a dedicated place for topic-based collaboration.
Groups and teams can share ideas, work on documents, and manage files and tasks—all from a single place. And the new integrated view in Gmail makes it easier to use Chat with your Gmail inbox, Spaces, and Meet.
“Switching to chat also makes expressing yourself more fun, whether you’re using emojis with skin tone selection, rich text editing to add emphasis to your chats, @mentions to notify someone in the group, or a GIF.” send,” the company said.
Google said that when people use Hangouts on mobile, they first see an in-app screen that prompts them to go to chat in Gmail or the chat app. Likewise, people using the Hangouts Chrome extension are prompted to switch to Chat on the web or install the Chat web app.
In July, Hangouts in Gmail on the web users get an upgrade to Chat in Gmail.
