Google Chat is an intelligent and secure communication and collaboration tool, built for teams. From ad-hoc messaging to topic-based workstream collaboration, Chat makes it easy to get work done where the conversation is happening.
• Group collaboration that allows Google Workspace content creation and sharing (Docs, Sheets, Slides), without having to worry about granting permissions
• Side by side editors, one click meetings, scheduling, document creation, and shared files, tasks, and events make it easy to get work done
• Google search functionality, with options to filter for conversations and content that you’ve shared
• Ready for Enterprise, with the full benefits of Google Workspace security and access controls including Data Loss Prevention, Compliance, Admin Settings, Vault Retention, Holds, Search, and Export
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new review Jan 2023 – still one star. Yes, you can share multiple photos now, and the notifications *usually* work now, so that’s good, but this app devours my battery, continually refreshes itself, and most importantly, it frequently takes multiple seconds to send a message that’s just one line of text. My internet connection is extremely fast and yet somehow my simple text chat messages sometimes sit in limbo in the “sending” state for seconds or minutes.
Edit Jan 2023 – Finally able to send up to 20 photos at once and the notification snafu is fixed, actually working as intended. Original: Too many missing features. In Google Hangouts you can send up to 10 photos at once, however here you must select them individually. Please fix this. Edit, July 8th 2022, this feature is still missing and we are now being forced to switch. RIP Hangouts.
the app on my tablet will not let me view conversations without the list of contacts always showing on the left side of the screen. it’s really distracting and I don’t like it but cannot find how to change back to the old view. really wish you people would stop changing things that are not broken. it’s inconsiderate and rude.
The email for help in the app bounces back as “no longer monitored” but random words are hyperlinking on Galaxy s22. It’s quite annoying, I’ve seen it in help threads for Google that include many different models. Random words end up not going anywhere even though they look like links. It’s not really just annoying, it’s confusing. Any help is appreciated
This has been integrated into Gmail on some devices making this app basically un-necesary unless you are unlucky enough that it does not integrate. One of my devices does and the other doesn’t, no reason as to why. I can say the newer version has won me back a bit, it is still lacking some of the user friendliness of hangouts, such as being able to place calls on the google voice number in app, or being able to create a video call in app. The new push for Google seems to be Meet, unfortunately.
I miss Hangouts. Still can’t attach multiple images. Sharing to this makes me search through all of my contacts, not just the few non-archived ones I still use. I have to manually search for the person I talk to daily on this when sharing something, but people I emailed once years ago show up at the top of the list. Horribly delayed notifications compared to desktop (sometimes like an hour). The browser version is awful compared to the Hangouts app which ran separately as well. Big downgrade.
Unreal horrible as compared to literally any other chatting app that exists. Shameful. Can’t share media.. Just doesn’t work. Can’t select more than one picture at a time? The program doesn’t even have continuity with other Google apps like Google photos. Hangouts was outdated and frankly never updated… But this updated replacement is so much worse. *Update since almost two years ago LOL, they updated this app so you can share multiple files now but removed the ability to share user gif? Haha
REALLY Rough Around the Edges. First, it keeps showing in the play store as, “Current version, for Google Workspace Customers only”, but that’s not true. Works fine with my consumer account, too. In “spaces,” while I can assign tasks, I cannot make them recurring? Most obnoxious is that when running the desktop version, dark mode is honored EXCEPT in in spaces, which always shows up as black on white, kinda defeating the purpose. Looks like Google dropped the ball on a messaging app again!?
This replacement for Hangout and Allo is sub par at best. I can’t manually delete messages like I can with any other app. I also have to manually open each image one at a time to both send and view instead of selecting multiple to upload or swiping between images that were sent. This feels like a junior ancillary project from Google instead of a well fleshed out and developed app. It’s predecessors we’re superior. That being said, I do like the ability to multi emoji react to a message.
Not user friendly reallly a disappointment. Need to be able to customize a conversation, make a unique notification for someone. The only reason I use it is to connect with a loved one. I don’t like how it only let’s you load one picture at a time, so that needs to be addressed. There needs to be a reply feature option, and any photos that are in the conversation should be able to be saved in a folder in my google photos instead of having to try to search the conversation and that’s in settings.
The only thing that I HATE about this app (and the desktop version) is the fact that you can not delete or edit a message without having a work or school email, which is really ridiculous. I think that the deleting and editing features should be available for personal emails as well. There are so many messaging apps that include the edit and delete feature, yet, there isn’t any in this app.
I can’t believe that although this has search, the search doesn’t search from all time (what’s the point? So I still have to go to my desktop to search most of the time) and it has none of the other super basic tools from hangouts including sending multiple photos at once and setting conversion shortcuts to the home screen. Single file sends and no scrolling between photos sent is so frustrating. I thought it was supposed to be the best of the previous apps but obviously not.
Exponentially worse than Hangouts. I gave it a fair chance, does not hold up. If you like getting 48 notifications from a single group message for your phone AND email, yet, never getting a response bc no one saw YOUR message, you found the perfect app for you! The only good thing about this thing is that you can preview links. The UI sucks, all conversations are just lists, and when you send messages, they’re on the same side as received messages. This is a downgrade. Worse since it was forced
Has potential but honestly after being forced to switch from Hangouts it’s a disappointment. If we’re going to be forced to switch at least have the same functions available in the new app as the old – biggest being able to send multiple images at a time! That is a basic function of any chat app!? Having to resend one image at a time feels archaic…
The picture experience continues to be terrible. From zooming to sending multiple pictures, to rotating, to viewing multiple pictures. I also have not found it to be great when it comes to sharing from outside the app (e.g links). After sharing, the app frequently returns to the list of conversation screen for sharing a link or whatever. The separation of chats and spaces is annoying (at least have an option to combine them) also i seem to have group chats but can’t create new ones?
Compared to hangouts this is junk but besides that, notifications are horrendous and rarely come through on time, if ever. I’ve gone as far as wiping my entire phone out to solve. Disgusting this works so terribly on the Android platform. Edit: I’ve been through every notification setting on earth trying to resolve this issue. It’s wildly inconsistent.
When I try to attach a picture, instead of it opening up a gallery application, it goes to a file explorer window, where I then have to choose a gallery app or manually browse through the directories to find the picture I want to upload. This takes forever, and what makes it worse is being able to select only one image at a time. Whose bright idea was this? We’re actively exploring other options now because of this.
This app still needs some work but it’s improved. You can only attach one photo at a time to send. Contacts in Chat are not connected to the Contact record in the Contacts app. Not doing so means that the Do Not Disturb settings don’t work i.e. DND has exceptions for starred contacts. When sharing from outside the app, have to choose which account to use but I don’t use the other for Chat. Lastly, videos that are sent can’t be downloaded. I’ll add an extra star for fixing any one of these.
I regularly run into an issue where the app is trying to connect and won’t send/receive messages. It acts like it’s loading for 60+seconds despite me having an active Internet connection. Clearing the cache will sometimes help. I can’t rely on this app for important timely messages like I used to. Edit: The developer response was wholly unhelpful and didn’t lead to any solutions for intermittent loading issues that affect my phone sending/receiving messages from the server
Nice update for Google Hangouts which is going away at any time. Hangout’s used to be nearly an all in one for communication, but Google stripped a lot of the functionality for no particular other than they were introducing other apps that ended up dying on the vine. This is the replacement. Fairly basic, functional and the UI is slightly better than Hangout’s. I hope Google continues to work with it instead of letting it go after 6-12 months. Right now I like it.
Please, help if you know how to fix this: every time I try to share a photo, I click the photo button (or attach file- doesn’t matter which) and it always opens Google drive. It takes a million extra clicks all over the screen instead of the 2ish clocks it used to take when it opened photos instead. I haven’t been able to find a setting to change this, but it is possibly the most annoying change ever. I’m clicking a photo button, not a document button. *Why* would that open Google drive???
Much worse than Hangouts. I dislike that you can only send one image at a time, that whenever you try to put asterisks around something, it makes it bold, the conversations are divided into “Chats” and “Spaces” instead of all in one list, you can’t join by link like you could on Hangouts. Also, if you jump up to last read, it often cuts out many messages in between where you jumped to and new messages. A couple valid upgrades are the GIF keyboard, the wider variety of emojis, and dark mode.
Ever since the changeover from Hangouts, my experience has been declining. I hate how my individual chat threads are on individual tabs, when they used to be in the same spot. I also really hate how if I get a notification, it doesn’t bring me to the correct thread, it just opens up the app to the last thread it was open to. I hope some improvements will be made to the functionality of this messaging app.
Can’t send photos (much of the time), can’t share location, can’t use your browser Gmail tab like with hangouts. Requires a secondary browser to open images. Awful. Garbage downgrade foisted on a captive audience. EDIT: Google, I don’t need a ‘how to’ on this app because it doesn’t have the same features or flexibility Hangouts did before you pulled all the features. Also, its integration into Windows browsers is truly awful. Forced white mode, Improper windows-in-windows handling, no sorting.
No useful information is available under “What’s New”. It just says “Current version, for Google Workspace Customers only, includes direct messages, group chats, and platform integration with Google Apps”. And it has been saying that for the past few updates. EDIT: Thanks for the response, but I’d still like to know what’s new before I tap “Update”.
What a shame for Google to introduce such a subpar work-in-progress app into the world, especially as a replacement to the app that worked perfectly well (i.e., Hangouts). Gchat is incapable of executing very basic actions, such as send multiple pics. It allows only to send super short videos, and drastically reduces quality of images. Very dissatisfied.
A step backwards in nearly every way from hangouts. Photos sharing is clunky and slow, can only share one photo at a time and no previews in notifications. Video is hard to share and takes forever to load. Interface is clunky overall. My friend group loved Google chat and hangouts because it integrated well into the website version of Gmail, now they are even making that version more difficult to work. I am scratching my head along with everyone else on the direction Google is taking.
Nobody asked for this app. All Google had to do was improve Hangouts. But instead you’ve created a whole new app with a terrible interface. There are no txt bubbles so it’s difficult to see who’s who. The separation of chats and spaces is just…why? You can’t copy/paste gifs from outside sources anymore (now it’s drag & drop). Can’t even swipe through pics easily, you have to open each one individually. You also can’t send large videos like on Hangouts, it’s limited to 200MB. This app is a joke
This app is just 🗑 garbage. Single picture sends. User-friendly features is useless. More clicks just to open app. Notifications are not great. This app needs to be deleted. Fake names fake reviews single word “good” bring ratings up. I’ll keep updating my reviews. This app was 2.7 now it’s 3.8. Still going up. I don’t see any changes whatsoever in the past year. Piece of S. Just like teams in Microsoft. Just junk. Condensing EVERYTHING to a less functional app/interface.
Still a massive downgrade from hangouts. When selecting camera for input, you can no longer record a quick video message and send it. You have to exit the app, launch camera, record a video, then switch back to send it from gallery. Hangouts didn’t require all that and neither does the messages app. Fix this missing feature.
I really wish they didn’t retire Hangouts. The functionality I used the most was the instant video calls which Chat just doesn’t do… you have to IM someone in order to do that and that’s assuming they are looking at the app. I also get infrequent notifications. Many times, I have hours worth of missed messages because I wasn’t notified of incoming chats. I just might have to go elsewhere because this is simply not cutting it.
Substantial backwards step from Hangouts. Ui is slow, for file interface is clunky, and I can’t download images? What? What kind of garbage is “forward to inbox”? Update: After response, I do see how to download images. Confusing it is not on the context menu, but oh well. I still do see an annoying bug where I can get the notification toast on my phone when I receive a message, but if I’m on 4G it ends up taking ~20+ seconds to actually show the message in the app.
Until recently, chat was usable. But now, a useless, pointless, ridiculous, annoying list of contacts takes up the left half of the screen when I’m trying just to read one contact’s messages. Hmm, it’s just like the useless inbox takes up half the screen when I’m trying to read my mail in the gmail app. I guess the wrong lessons are being learned between mobile app teams at Google.
I really liked this app before the new update. In the new update, I can’t get a full view of the people I’m chatting with. It’s really distracting and also frustrating. Originally, I would have rated it a 4 star at least, but yeah. Also the quality is always really low when I send videos, idk if this is only happening to me. Please fix these issues, thank you!
I stopped using it. Too many apps sync to it. So I get and email, hangouts message and google messages and possibly a text at the same time. Which one do I reply to? It doesn’t work the way it used to. I can’t even send a message to some old friends back from gtalk. It just displays “error, possible cause system admin has changed permissions”. And there is no one that I have used it with online in 3 years or so. It’s broken or something.
It would be nice to have an option to instantly take photo and add to the chat rather than clicking the Plus+ button. I know there’s a button to add photos that’s already in your device. But i want a button to take photos without going to the Plus. It’s also a shame when using iPad I can’t do calls or send voice message.
The basic function for chat, i can’t complain. But the app is often slow to update for latest msgs compared to similar services (despite both phone and app being up to date), and I find it hard to configure the notifications between gchat app and the chat within gmail. I wish i could turn off the chat alert in gmail so i can have it alert for the app only. Adding reactions feels clunky, but it’s nice that I can now send multiple photos at once. EDIT: Cleared cache and app is still slow
Pants, tbh. It does function and it doesn’t break too much, except where signal is annoying less than 4G+, when it doesn’t load even recently accessed chats or the keyboard or anything.. I’m locked in to this as family use it, but it’s absolutely rubbish given the capability and range of expertise available to Google. It needs voice notes, and higher encryption, also. Thanks for earlier reply, but not noticed any changes!
K so idea spam time. No 1, improve the picture experience. Like it’s too laggy rn and the options r hidden away in a separate menu. I think the options should just be at the bottom. Another thing, the animation for holding a message rlly doesn’t fit in with the design of the app. I think it’s better to like when we select it the text becomes bigger and the other texts become blurry. No 3, when some1 reacts to a text, it’s only there till u see it. The reaction’s there but preview’s gone. k thx
Sucks compared to hangouts. UI is terrible. No separation between messages, it’s all just a blur. Makes it difficult to know who is saying what. Picture and video sending is broken. Can only send one picture at a time while hangouts you could send multiple and swipe between them in the chat instead of opening yet another google product to view them 1 by 1. Videos don’t work at all. Edit: and now notifications don’t work.