Notify users about Google Chat transition

To notify your users about the Google Chat transition, you can customize the template below and send it as an email.

Sample email

To: all users @ company

Subject: Moving to Google Chat on [Date]

Hello [Users],

We’re excited to share that we’ll be transitioning everyone in the company to Google’s newest enterprise-grade collaboration product, Google Chat. Chat has a modern UI, spaces that support better team collaboration, emoji reactions to make work fun, and bots to help you be more productive, and much more. 

Beginning [DATE], all teams will be using Chat for 1:1 direct messages (DMs), group chats, and team discussions. Classic Hangouts apps will be turned off.

How do I get Google Chat? It's important to do the following before [DATE] as classic Hangout apps will stop working:

• 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 can access the desktop app from a prompt that appears in chat.google.com
• On [DATE], refresh your Gmail to get the new Chat in Gmail experience.

Where do I find my old chats?

• You can continue recent conversations from classic Hangouts in Google Chat. Over time, older conversations from classic Hangouts will also migrate to Google Chat.
• All previous chat history from classic Hangouts will be accessible in Gmail.
• The classic Hangouts web interface for chat, hangouts.google.com will remain available during this transition, but you can’t use classic Hangouts by visiting hangouts.google.com in a mobile browser. 

What are the limitations of Chat?

• Google Voice and Google Fi are not available through Chat:
  • If you already have a Google Voice account, you can access Google Voice at voice.google.com, by selecting Voice from the App launcher , or by downloading the Google Voice app (Android, iOS).
  • Google Fi users must use the default SMS app on their mobile device to send and receive SMS messages.

• If you start spaces in Chat with the option for threaded conversations, these spaces will not appear to people who still use classic Hangouts.

Where do I go for help?

• For more information about the new Chat, go to the Learning Center.
• Our support desk is ready to answer your questions.
• We’ve also created a Chat space to help with Q&A.

Administrative Team at [Company]