Google Hangouts is shutting down in November

Image: Google

The process of migration of free, personal Hangouts users to chat began in February. People who still use the Hangouts mobile app will see a prompt to move to chat, according to an announcement posted to the company's website.

Users who use Gmail on the web won't be prompted to switch to chat until July. Users will be warned at least one month in advance before the Hangouts site is pointed to chat.

Image: Google

Gchat, which was discontinued by the company earlier this month, isn't the same as Google chat. The successor to Gchat was supposed to beHangouts. The company made the feature free for all users in 2020, a year after it said it would transition users to chat.

You should be able to transfer your conversations to chat if you still use Hangouts. You can use the company's Takeout service to get a copy of your data before it's discontinued.

The ability to make direct calls, create in-line threads, and share and view multiple images are some of the new features that will be rolled out in the coming weeks.

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