Moving to the more feature-rich Google Chat

By: Computing and Communications Services (CCS)

July 24, 2020

To: All students, faculty and staff

Beginning July 30, 2020, Google Chat will be introduced at Ryerson as a replacement for Google Hangouts, the text-based messaging app currently used at the university. While Hangouts will still be available for the time being, Google has announced its permanent retirement of Hangouts later this year.

Additional capabilities with Google Chat

As a more feature-rich option that offers more than text-based messaging, Google Chat is built for greater collaboration and quicker communication. Some Google Chat features include:

Chat rooms with the ability to have threaded conversations;
Custom notifications for specific chat rooms and messages;
Integration with Google Meet for video conferencing and Google Drive, with the ability to quickly reference your files stored in the latter;
Enhanced search capabilities;
Image and file sharing directly in chat messages.

How to access Google Chat

From your computer, you can launch Google Chat by:

Navigating directly to chat.google.com (external link) ;
Downloading the Google Chat desktop app (external link) from the G Suite site as a replacement for the classic Hangouts Chrome extension; or
Using Google Chat directly in Gmail (external link) .

On a mobile device, you have the option of:

Downloading the Google Chat app for Android from the Google Play Store (external link) ; or
Downloading the Google Chat app for iOS from the Apple App Store (external link) .

Finding old chats from Google Hangouts

While one-to-one direct messages with other individuals on Hangouts will automatically migrate to Chat, your existing group chats will need to be recreated either as a new group chat or a chat room. Find more on choosing between creating a room or group message in Chat.

For help finding your chat history from Hangouts, please visit the Google Chat Help Centre.

Between now and Google’s retirement of Hangouts, the classic Hangouts web interface, hangouts.google.com (external link) will remain available to provide time to transition and move certain group conversations.

Questions?

For an overview of features or for help using Google Chat, please visit the G Suite at Ryerson University website. For a list of known limitations on the new Google Chat app, please visit the Google Chat Guide.

If you have additional questions, please contact the Computing and Communications Services (CCS) Help Desk at help@torontomu.ca or 416-979-5000, ext. 556840 (students) or ext. 556806 (employees).