When you try to send someone a message in Google Chat, you might get a banner that says you can't message them. This banner appears because you and the person you tried to message have incompatible settings.
Reasons you can't chat with someone
- Settings that don't allow chatting outside of their organization. If they use a Google Workspace account and their administrator disabled chatting with external people, you won’t be able to message each other.
- History settings that aren't compatible. You might be able to fix this issue if you make your history settings compatible with the other person. Learn how to turn chat history on or off.
- Data region settings that aren’t compatible and at least one of you can’t turn history off. If you use a Google Workspace account, your administrator may have disabled history customization. If history can be turned off for both of you, it automatically turns off when you chat with someone in a different data region.
- Settings that block you in Google Chat or another product. Learn more about blocked accounts.
- Space member management is restricted to space managers. To add members to a space, the space manager must update space access settings. Learn more how to manage existing space settings.