To ease the transition to Google Chat, the chat services and settings for classic Hangouts and Google Chat have been combined and simplified in the Google Admin console. The changes are rolling out now and will be generally available over the next few weeks. Now there's one place where you can control which chat services and settings apply to your organization.
What’s changed?
Previously, admins had to go to settings pages for both Chat and classic Hangouts to manage service status and settings for their domain. Now, both the service status control and the settings have been combined into a single page labeled “Google Chat and classic Hangouts”. The previous page for classic Hangouts has been removed.
We have mapped your previous selections to these new settings. Your prior chat service settings will continue to work as before. See table below for details:
| Chat Preferred | Google Chat service | Classic Hangouts service | New Service status |
|---|---|---|---|
| ON | ON | ON | Chat preferred |
| ON | ON | OFF | Chat only |
| ON | OFF | ON | Classic only |
| ON | OFF | OFF | Both turned off |
| OFF | ON | ON | Chat and classic Hangouts |
| OFF | ON | OFF | Chat only |
| OFF | OFF | ON | Classic only |
| OFF | OFF | OFF | Both turned off |
Chat service status control
You can choose which chat services to turn on for your organization, as well as decide whether Google Chat should be included in Gmail, by navigating to Apps > G Suite > Settings for Google Chat and classic Hangouts > Service Status and choosing one of the settings below. You can apply these settings to your entire organization or to specific organizational units.
|
Service status |
Google Chat service |
Classic Hangouts service |
Chat Clients |
Classic Hangouts Clients |
||||||
|
Gmail |
Web |
Desktop (PWA) |
Mobile |
Gmail |
Web |
Chrome extension |
Mobile |
|||
|
Chat preferred |
ON |
ON |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
Yes |
No |
No |
|
Chat and classic Hangouts |
ON |
ON |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Chat only |
ON |
OFF |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
No |
No |
No |
No |
|
Classic Hangouts only |
OFF |
ON |
No |
No |
No |
No |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
|
Both turned off |
OFF |
OFF |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
No |
While both the “Chat preferred” and “Chat only” service status settings include Google Chat in Gmail, there are important distinctions to note between the two options:
- The “Chat preferred” service status setting provides the best migration experience if your goal is to upgrade users from classic Hangouts to Google Chat. It also ensures that your users can still talk to people outside your domain who still use classic Hangouts.
- The “Chat only” service status setting turns off the classic Hangouts service. Affected users will not be able to talk to Classic users.
