Google has finally set a date to migrate from classic Hangouts to Google Chat in March workstation (previously G Suite) users. Google was supposed to start the migration from October 2019, but the multi-stage plan didn’t start until 2020.
On its blog, Google said: “We are now ready to move into the final phase of migration from classic Hangouts google chat For Google Workspace customers.”
The company said it would not be possible to opt-out of the change. Google has mentioned that hangouts.google.com will continue to function but apps will be disabled for both Android and iOS apps. However, there will be no fear of losing the chat history as Google has already moved the conversation history to Google Chat.
If an organization’s admin console setting is still set to “Chats & Classic Hangouts,” there will be an automatic upgrade to “Favorite Chats” in three weeks starting March 22, 2022. Organizations that have “classic Hangouts only” will see the migration over a five-week period starting April 4.
The Google Workspace update noted: “Starting March 22, 2022, we will enable the “Chat Preferred” setting for any customers who haven’t already, making Google Chat the default chat application.”
This Hangout to Google Chat migration only affects Workspace users and will not affect people using free personal Google accounts. The company is reportedly planning to move all users after the workspace change.
Previously, Workspace Admin was available to keep both classic Hangouts and Google Chat accessible to end users.
Emphasizing chat history, the Google Workspace update noted: “Except in some special cases, all conversation history from Hangouts will be available in Google Chat. However, from mid-March 2022, newly created locations in Google Chat in your domain Won’t appear in classic Hangouts, which means messages sent in these spaces will only appear in Google Chat for affected users.
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