May 30 - New Google Chat Becomes Available Systemwide

New Google Chat is Available on May 30

Beginning on Saturday, May 30, all University of Minnesota Google accounts will be transitioned to the new Google Chat from classic Hangouts Chat. Please note: Google Chat will be made  available on May 30, but it may take up to 24 hours for the change to appear for some users. 

No action is required as a result of this change, unless you want to migrate any group messages from classic Hangouts Chat (see guidance below).

New Features

  • Rooms for improved team collaboration
  • Emoji reactions
  • Bots
  • Upgraded Gmail integration 
  • Ability to chat with external users, including those across the system campuses and at other Universities that use Google (this feature is not available for Health Sciences users)

Note: Starting June 4, to comply with information security best practices, message history in rooms will be automatically deleted after 5 days. This applies to new rooms as well as rooms that you may have created if you’re already using Google Chat. If you want to save your room message history, we recommend that you copy/paste into a document for future reference.

Explore Google Chat

We recommend familiarizing yourself with the new Chat before May 30, as classic Hangouts Chat will no longer be supported:

  • Explore the new web experience at chat.google.com.
  • Download the new mobile app for Android or iOS.
  • Download the new standalone desktop app if you've been using the classic Hangouts Chrome extension or app. You'll be able to access the desktop app from a prompt that will appear inside chat.google.com.
  • On May 30, refresh your browser to get the new Chat in Gmail experience. Note: The change may take up to 24 hours to appear for some users. 

Migrate Group Messages

You will be able to continue recent 1:1 direct messages from classic Hangouts Chat in Google Chat, but group messages from classic Hangouts (including their history) will not be migrated to Google Chat. 

If you have important group messages in classic Hangouts Chat, we recommend that you recreate them as Rooms in the new Chat.

Access Old Chats

Classic Hangouts Chat functionality will no longer be supported on May 30, but there are still a few ways to access old conversations in classic Hangouts Chat:

  • The web interface (hangouts.google.com) will remain available as read only during this transition. 
  • All previous chat history from classic Hangouts Chat will remain accessible in Gmail. 
  • The classic Hangouts bot in the new Chat will notify you of missed messages from classic Hangouts Chat. 

Once classic Hangouts Chat is no longer supported, group direct messages and rooms that are started in the new Chat will not send messages to users who are still on the classic Hangouts Chat.

Help Resources

Visit the G Suite Learning Center for more information about the new Google Chat, or contact Technology Help for additional assistance.

Additional Resources

Google Chat