Set external chat options

You can control how users chat with people outside of your organization. If you allow your users to chat externally, you can also allow them to create and join spaces with people outside your organization.

Set up external chat

Before you begin: Learn more about chatting with external users.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using an account with super administrator privileges (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsGoogle WorkspaceGoogle Chat.
3. Click External Chat Settings.
4. To apply the setting to everyone, leave the top organizational unit selected. Otherwise, select a child organizational unit.
5. Next to the setting that you want to change, click Edit  and choose Off or On for these settings:

   • Warn users—On lets users know when they're chatting with someone outside of your organization. This setting applies only to classic Hangouts. (Google Chat always marks external users and spaces External.) This setting must be Off for external users to join a group conversation by link.

   • Chat externally—On lets users chat with people outside of your organization. Check Only allow for allowlisted domains to allow external sharing with only trusted domains.

     Note: You can’t add external guests to group chats created in Chat.

   • Show status—On shows a user's status to people outside of your organization who use Google Workspace or Gmail. This setting applies only to classic Hangouts. (In Chat, everyone in your organization and anyone who gets a message from someone in your organization can see your users' statuses.) Learn how to change your status and profile photo.

6. Click Save. If you configured a child organizational unit, you might be able to Inherit or Override a parent organizational unit's settings.

Turn external spaces on or off

Supported editions for this feature: Business Standard and Business Plus; Enterprise; Education Fundamentals, Education Standard, Teaching and Learning Upgrade, and Education Plus; G Suite Business; Essentials.  Compare your edition

You can also control whether users can create or join spaces within your organization that include external people outside of your organization. Users with this setting turned off or who have editions that don't support external spaces can't create these spaces, but they can join existing spaces with external people.

Before you begin: The External spaces setting applies only if Chat externally is enabled (described in the section above). If it’s not, your users can’t create or join external spaces inside or outside of your organization—even if External spaces is On.

1. Sign in to your Google Admin console.

   Sign in using an account with super administrator privileges (does not end in @gmail.com).

2. In the Admin console, go to Menu  AppsGoogle WorkspaceGoogle Chat.
3. Click External spaces.
   This setting applies to your entire organization.
4. For Allow users to create & join spaces with people outside their organization, select On or Off:
   • On—Allow users in your organization to create and join external spaces within your organization.
     
     (Optional) To restrict external participants to trusted domains, check the Only allow users to add people from allowlisted domains box. If you've checked the allowlisted domains box for Chat externally (described in the previous section), you should also check this box for spaces. Otherwise, your users won't be able to create any external spaces. 
      
   • Off—Prevent users from creating or joining spaces within your organization that include external people. Users can still join external spaces created outside your organization if Chat externally (described in the previous section) is turned on.  
5. Click Save.