Create & manage spaces in Gmail

You can create a space for ongoing and long-term conversations.

When you create a space, you can:

• Name the space.
• Split the conversation into threads.
• Invite people or groups.

Important: To add someone to a space, they must have a personal, work, or school account. If they don't, learn how to create a Google account.

Create a space in Gmail

1. Open Gmail.
2. Next to "Spaces", click add .
3. Click Create space.
   • To resize this section, at the top of "Spaces," drag up or down.
   • To add a space avatar, click Choose an emoji select an emoji. If you don't select an emoji, a default letter avatar will be used instead.
4. Enter a space name.
5. To add a person or group to the space, enter the name, email, Google Groups, or select suggested contacts to invite.
6. Optional for Workspace users:

• To allow threaded replies, select Use threaded replies.
• To invite external people into the space, check Allow people outside of your organization to join.
• Important: After you click Create, you can’t change these actions.

7. Repeat for each invitee.
8. Click Create.

Turn a group chat into a space

If you created a group chat, you can turn it into a space. When you use a space, you can name the space, share files, and assign tasks with other people in the space. 

1. Go to Google Chat or your Gmail account.
2. From the Chat panel, find and click the group chat you want to change to a space.
3. At the top, next to the group chat name, click the Down arrow Turn this chat into a space .
4. Add a space name. To add an optional space icon, click Add .
5. Click Done. A notification confirms your chat is now a space, and notifies members in the group of the change.

After you make the change, you can find chat, files, and tasks tabs in your space.

Tip: You can add and remove people from a space at any time.

Delete a space

Important: 

• You can only delete a space if you’re the space creator. 
• When you delete a space, all messages and tasks in the space are deleted. Permissions on Drive files are removed, but the file isn’t deleted. 
• Once a space is deleted, you can’t recover it. 

1. Go to Google Chat or your Gmail account.
2. Open the space that you want to delete.
3. At the top, next to the space name, click Down arrow  Delete space  Delete.

Tip: If you didn’t create the space, learn how to leave a space.