Google has retired the Hangouts app for both Android and iOS. After first announcing that it would push people over to using its Slack-like app, Chat, in 2021, Google phased out the app in July of this year. Users have been shown a prompt telling them that “Hangouts has been replaced by Google Chat.” People can switch from there to either the standalone Chat app or the Web experience on Gmail.
Hangouts on the web will update and redirect to Google Chat at the end of November. Before the switch occurs, you’ll receive a message before this overhaul that notify you of the change. You can still access the website without being automatically redirected, but there’s a link to Google Chat that you can click if you’re ready for the new messaging experience. The website might be taken down in coming days.
After moving away from its messaging strategy, Google rolled out the feature known as Chat. The new feature opens up better avenues for businesses to collaborate by allowing users to edit Docs, Slides, or Sheets together. It can also replace apps such as Hanglets and Slack that some businesses had been using previously. Spaces is one of Google’s new features that will be offered to companies who are interested in using it for collaborative purposes.
Google previously stated that those who want to save their Hangouts data will have to use the Takeout tool before it’s gone for good. We still see Hangouts on Takeout, so those who want to do anything last-minute should check out the service now while it’s still possible.