Google has finally set the date for migration away from Classic Hangouts to Google Chats in March for Workspace (previously G Suite) users. Google was supposed to start the migration from October 2019 but the multi-stage plan did not begin until 2020.
On its blog, Google said: “We’re now ready to move into the final phase of the migration from Classic Hangouts to Google Chat for Google Workspace customers.”
The company said it will not be possible to opt-out of the change. Google mentioned that hangouts.google.com would continue to work but the apps for both Android and iOS apps will be disabled. There, however, will be no fear of losing the chat history as Google has already moved the conversation history to Google Chat.
If an organisation’s admin console setting is still set at “Chat and classic Hangouts,” the automatic upgrade to “chat preferred” will occur over three weeks starting March 22, 2022. Organisations that have “Classic Hangouts only” will see the migration over a five-week period starting April 4.
The Google Workspace Updates mentioned: “Beginning March 22, 2022, we’ll turn on the “Chat preferred” setting for any customers, who haven’t already done so, making Google Chat the default chat application.”
This Hangout to Google Chat migration only impacts Workspace users and it will not affect people using free personal Google accounts. The company reportedly plans to move all users after the Workspace transformation is done.
Earlier, the workspace administrator was available to keep both classic Hangouts and Google Chat available for end-users.
Stressing on chat history, the Google Workspace Updates mentioned: “Except for a few special cases, all the conversation history from Hangouts will be available in Google Chat. However, starting mid-March 2022, any newly created spaces in Google Chat within your domain will not appear in classic Hangouts. This means that messages sent in these spaces will only appear in Google Chat for affected users.”