Google Hangouts is shutting down, here’s what you should know

Google Hangouts will be discontinued by November this year for free, personal users, and it will make a prompt move to Chat in Gmail.

In a statement, Google said users will receive an in-app product notice at least a month before Hangouts will be redirected to Chat.

"Hence, we encourage users who wish to copy their Hangouts data to use Google Takeout to download their data before Hangouts are no longer available.

"With Google Chat, it opens up new and better ways to connect and collaborate, for example users can edit documents, slides of sheets with side-by-side editing," wrote Google.

Google Chat was formerly introduced by Google to help users collaborate better.

The specification in Chat also includes a place for topic-based collaboration, Spaces whereby group and team can share ideas, work for documents, manage files and task, all from single location.

Speaking for the future of Chat, Google will present more features over the coming months to offer a modern and integrated experience in Google Workspace.

"You will see even more like direct-calling, in-line threading in Spaces and the ability to share and view multiple images.

"As we take the final step to bring remaining Hangouts users to Chat, we hope users will appreciate our continued investment in making Chat a powerful place to create and collaborate,” says Google, in a statement today.

To learn more about Chat and Hangout, Google users may visit the Help Center and why they were recommended to download the Hangouts data.