There might be only one real criteria for the best chat app for your team: How easy it is for everyone to use. With dozens of great video and text chat apps for teams–each of which include quite similar features–the deciding factor is often down to the way your team works. Google Hangouts quickly became that default, easiest-to-use video calls option for many teams thanks to it running in your browser and being deeply integrated in Google's other apps. Create a new Google Calendar event, and you'll get a Hangouts video chat link included automatically—and can pick up your chat conversations right inside Gmail. It's no longer just Hangouts, though. There's Hangouts Meet as a way to schedule video calls, and Hangouts Chat for continuous text chat with your team about your products. And on the consumer side, Google's combining its messaging efforts into the new Google Chat app.
Chat for Google, free and safe download. Chat for Google latest version: A Free Browsers program for Windows. Chat for Google is a popular, free Windows. Oct 9, 2014 - Google has launched a new app for Chrome OS and Windows that gives users direct access to their Hangouts conversations right on the.
Here's how to start using Google's Hangouts Meet and Chat apps today—and which of Google's half-dozen chat apps you should use. Originally published March 10, 2017; updated April 25, 2018 with details about the newly released Hangouts Chat and upcoming Google Chat apps. Google Hangouts Meet: It's Hangouts, Redesigned. The new Google Meet appointment page feels like a slightly bolder Hangouts, focused on scheduled appointments The best thing to come out the Google+ social network experiment was Hangouts. It's a solid, free video chat app that's built into Gmail and Google Calendar, making it the simplest way to jump on a call with colleagues. Its text chat is basic, much like the older IM-style Google Talk app, but Hangouts' high-quality videos with 25 participants more than made up for that.
Hangouts' video calls are still there, but if you're working with a team and have scheduled meetings, Google Hangouts Meet or just Meet is the app to use. It's Hangouts, designed around scheduled calls. You'll book appointments first in Google Calendar, then open and jump on the call when it's time. For the most part, Meet is the same as Hangouts' video calls—only with a fresh new design focused just on video chat. There's no text chat—that's saved for the companion Hangouts Chat app. Instead, you'll get full-screen video with for G Suite Basic and Business plans and 50 participants with G Suite Enterprise.
How to Use Google Hangouts Meet Today. Enable Hangouts on your Google Calendar meetings, and you'll see them in Meet too If you have a paid G Suite account, you can start using the new Google Hangouts Meet app for your team calls today. If your team's enabled Hangouts Meet in G Suite admin, you can schedule new calls right from Hangouts Meet—and for all other G Suite accounts you can schedule a video call in Google Calendar, and join them from Meet. First, make a new appointment in Google Calendar. Invite any participants, schedule it for the time you want, and then tap the Add video call link under the video location. That'll add a Google Hangouts link to your event—and also add it to the new Meet app. Meet lets you check your video before joining a call—just like Hangouts Now, when it's time for your call, go to in Google Chrome—that's the only supported browser right now.
You'll see a list of your upcoming meetings as in the top screenshot on this article. Tap the correct meeting, then join the video call much as you would for a standard Hangouts video. Fun Fact: For now, Google Calendar includes a standard Hangouts link that'll open at hangouts.google.com with the old interface.
If your colleagues click that link, they'll join the call using the old Hangouts—and they'll join in your Meet call just the same. They're each just different interfaces for the same video call service. If you want to share your screen, Meet will let you share your full desktop or choose one app to share. Its window selector reminds us of Zoom—and it's actually part of the webpage, even though it looks like a separate window. Google Meet worked well in our tests—much the same as traditional Hangouts. Its only problem is is the same: It drains your battery and kicks in your laptop's fans on longer calls.
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If your video's running slow, you can switch from the default 720p stream to 360p video. Or you can switch to the traditional Hangouts interface if you'd like—just tap the menu button on the right, and select Hangouts to switch apps without quitting the call. And that's it. Meet's a simplified version of traditional Hangouts video chat, still one of the best ways to jump on a call with your team. It's Chrome-only for now—but you can still use Hangouts' mobile apps to join Meet calls.
→ Learn more about or get help with. Google Hangouts Chat: Team Chat, Google Style. Google Hangouts Chat is a conversation-focused team chat app Then, Hangouts Meet has a text chat sidekick: at the easy-to-remember. It's a brand-new team chat app from Google, one that's most similar to apps like Slack and HipChat than anything Google has released so far.
And it's included with all G Suite accounts. Hangouts Chat is focused on ongoing conversations between teams in your company. You'll make groups that are focused on the team you invite to chat. Everything's organized into conversations. Instead of posting new chat messages as followups to things posted earlier, you'll reply directly to older conversations or start new conversations when you have something new to talk about.
Or you can message individuals for one-to-one chats inside your company. It's also deeply integrated with the rest of G Suite, so you can share documents and manage appointments right from chat. Share a Google Docs document, say, and Hangouts Chat will automatically update its sharing settings to make sure everyone in your team can view that document. Then when you search for older things your team has talked about, you can filter search by Google Docs, Slides, or Sheets to find specific documents you've shared. Along with focused conversations, Hangouts Chat helps you keep from being distracted with customizable notifications. You can choose which conversations you want notified about, and whether you'd like to get mobile or email notifications. Perhaps most exciting is Google Hangouts Chat's built-in integrations and bots.
It comes with a built in @meet bot which, similar to Google Assistant, will help you find appointments and other info from your Google account. You can browse through a wide range of bots that come with Hangouts Chat today, including one from Kayak that helps you find flights right from chat. And you can chat privately with bots or add them to rooms to get more done right from chat. Then, with integrations from apps like QuickBooks, Box, and, you can send notifications about new data into your team chat and build your own bots without coding. → Learn more in. Which Google Chat App Should I Use?
Over Google's history, the company has launched over a dozen voice and text chat apps. Google Talk and Wave are long gone, but with the new Meet and Chat apps, the search giant still supports a half-dozen chat apps. It's not certain which apps will still be around years from now—but today, its business chat apps are focused on Hangouts, while its consumer chat efforts are focused on a new Google Chat app. Which of Google's chat apps should you use? Here's a quick guide to what each app offers: Google Allo for chatting with your friends. Allo combines a couple of Google's current focuses.
It's a fun chat app designed to take on Facebook's Messenger and Apple's iMessage, with stickers, suggested replies, and built-in drawing tools. You can chat individually with friends–as long as they're using the Allo app as well–or can create a group with up to 250 people. The biggest reason to try it out today, though, is for Google Assistant.
A chatbot powered by a similar AI to the one in the Google Now voice assistant, Google Assistant can find travel details from your email, lookup plane ticket info, and tell you a joke. It's a Siri you don't have to talk to. Allo's not Google's main focus today, with the team shifted to work on the upcoming Google Chat app, but if your friends all use Allo, it can still be a great chat app for personal conversations. → Find out more and download at Google Duo for quick one-to-one video calls. Ever wished FaceTime worked on Android phones too? Or want Hangouts video chat without all the extra features? Google Duo is the video chat app you've wanted.
Duo's one of the easiest to use video call apps. Just open the app, tap a contact, and talk to them in full-screen video seconds later. It's the video call counterpart to Allo, and just might replace the consumer-focused version of Hangouts video calls. → Find out more and download at Android Messages for sending SMS and MMS messages on Android. Google Hangouts is the chat app if you want an easy way to make video calls with groups. You can chat with anyone else with a Google account—paid or free. You can also video-call up to 25 people at once, complete with effects like adding a fake hat to your head or playing a sound effect to prank friends.
Want to reach a broader audience? Hangouts is what powers, for live broadcasts streamed from your chat app. Hangouts works everywhere: On mobile and on most desktop browsers.
It's a click away in Gmail, and whenever you make a new Google Calendar appointment, you'll get a Hangouts link as well to easily jump on a call. It's great for business calls, and equally handy for personal chats. → Find out more and try at, or check out Zapier's for more details Coming Soon: Google Chat Don't look yet, but later this year Google will launch a new, unified messaging app on Android:. Built around Rich Communication Services, a planned replacement standard for the global SMS messages that are supported by every carrier and phone, Google Chat won't be exactly a replacement for chat apps like Hangouts and Allo.
It's not tied to an account—instead, it's tied to your phone number and will bring chat-like features to the traditional SMS messaging. With upcoming Android updates, it will replace the built-in SMS app—and perhaps eventually come to desktops and the web. It might be the next best way to chat in 2019. Related Reading.
Want a different, non-Google app for video calls? Here are —each one tried and tested by our team. See how Hangouts Chat stacks up to in our roundup. Want to make your team work together even better in G Suite? Download a free copy of Zapier's to learn how to set up, customize, and collaborate in a G Suite account for your company.
All the different Google messaging apps can be confusing, and it doesn’t help that Google continually, or integrates features from. But, according to Google (via ), it will not wrap all the messaging services under one roof: We’ve designed specific products for distinct use cases, so we don’t intend to have one app that does everything for everyone. We think we can better serve our users by creating products that function really well, and users can choose the product that best suits their needs. While this sounds good on paper, it also makes things bewildering for the user when it comes to sticking with one app for one function.
For example, a user could use, or to make a phone call. Which one should they use? Why is one of them better than any other? Before we take a look at all the current Google messaging apps, let’s look back at Google’s messaging history. History Google’s first attempt at a messaging application was arguably its best. It was called (sometimes colloquially referred to as Google Chat or Gchat) and you could use it to chat with anyone on any platform, even if they didn’t have a Google account.
The Gmail web portal had a browser-based chat box, so you didn’t have to install any software. There was an Android app, a Windows app, and even a BlackBerry app. Read Next: However, Google Talk was based on an open-source protocol called XMPP. Google decided to drop support for XMPP and instead use its own proprietary platform for its, which launched in 2011. Both Huddle and Hangouts were born from that change. Google then killed Huddle and spun Hangouts off into its own, standalone app. Google hoped Hangouts would be the better, all-encompassing solution to communication by giving users the ability to text chat, video chat, and make calls all within one app.
But Hangouts didn’t take, and soon Google started to splinter aspects of Hangouts out into separate apps, which created the messaging app mess we have now. Google messaging apps – seven choices still exist Now, there are many apps on the Google Play Store that do messaging functions better than Google’s apps, which is crazy considering Google Talk and Gmail were the default messaging services for millions until Google killed off Talk. The seven Google messaging apps below are what we have now. Most everyone is aware of at this point. It’s a free, advertising-based service that allows you to send and receive email.
You can use the Gmail app on your phone, the web portal at, or you can integrate your Gmail account into a third-party client, like. The web client supports instant messaging through an integrated (more on that later). Is also integrated within the Gmail web portal.
This makes the web portal a robust center for you to control multiple messaging experiences, especially with the recent redesign. However, the standalone Gmail mobile app only supports the email functions of Gmail. Best use: Use the Gmail app for your email, especially if you like having lots of control over your workflow. Google introduced in 2014 as an alternative to the.
The design and workflow of Inbox are different than Gmail, with Google’s AI program taking more control over the organization of your messages. Unlike Gmail, you can’t create a new account with Inbox; you use a pre-existing email account within the Inbox client. Some of the features born in Inbox — like the — have made their way to the native Gmail app. But some people prefer Inbox over Gmail because of its simplicity and the fact that Google’s AI handles a lot of the legwork of keeping your Inbox clean and organized.
Just like the Gmail mobile app, the Inbox mobile app only lets you do email. However, unlike the Gmail web portal, the Inbox web portal also only allows you to do email, although your call logs and SMS messages from Google’s other services appear in your Inbox folders.
In general, Inbox is just a different version of the Gmail interface, which makes one wonder how long the app will last. Best use: Use the Inbox by Gmail app for your email if you’d rather not spend the time to keep things organized for yourself. Okay, this is where things get really confusing. Started as a feature within that was strictly for video chats. However, facing competition from the likes of, and, Google needed a standalone service to grab some market share.
So it ported out the Hangouts feature into its own app. Now, using Hangouts, you can instant message people, conduct video chats, and place audio phone calls. However, you can’t send SMS or MMS messages, which prevents Hangouts from being the all-encompassing messaging app from Google.
But Hangouts itself isn’t long for this world. Last year, Google announced that it would split Hangouts into two different products:. Hangouts Meet will encompass the video conference aspects of Hangouts and Hangouts Chat will focus on the instant messaging side. Currently, the full-featured versions of both Hangouts Meet and Hangouts Chat are reserved for G Suite customers only. The vanilla Hangouts is still available on the Google Play Store, but who knows for how long.
Best use: Hangouts is honestly great at everything it does. However, as noted at the beginning of this article, Google doesn’t want a one-size-fits-all messaging app, so who knows how long we’ll have Hangouts. After Google gave up on becoming an alternative for WhatsApp users, it put out, which is only about instant messaging. The big selling point for Allo is the fact that it integrates into your chats, giving you access to things like Smart Reply. To use Allo, you have to connect it with your phone number, which limits you to using Allo only on your phone. There’s no tablet or desktop support for Allo, which is annoying. However, even though you can instant message with people using Allo, you can’t use the app as an SMS or MMS client.
That means that, even though you connected your phone number to the app, you still have to text people using one app and then IM them using Allo. What’s super annoying about this limitation is that Allo does, in fact, give you the ability to send SMS texts. But the person who receives the message gets it from a weird, Google-owned proxy number, not your own. Oh, and one last thing: Google is likely doing away with Allo by integrating into Android Messages through a new program called (more on that later). There’s nothing solid as of yet, but we’ll likely see the end of Allo in the near future.
Aside from these significant caveats, Allo is a good app. What it does (instant messaging) it does well, with a colorful and easy-to-use interface with a lot of cool features. Best use: Use for instant messaging only, and only use it if you have to. Allo is not long for this world.
Along with the split of instant messaging from into, Google created to handle video chats. At first, video calling is all the app did. Now it can also handle audio calling. However, as usual, there are some limits. Using Duo, you can not only place video calls to people using your Google account, but you can also call other mobile numbers.
If the person you call has Duo installed on their phone, you can video/audio chat with each other for free. However, if you place a video call with an Android user who doesn’t have Duo installed, it defaults to a regular audio call. After the call, the user is encouraged to install Duo.
If you video call a person who’s using a non-Android device like an iPhone, and they don’t have Duo installed, the call doesn’t go through at all, and you have to contact them through other means. It’s also worth mentioning that it is possible — although tricky — to use Duo with your Google Voice number instead of your SIM number. However, it is far easier to use your SIM number with the app. Best use: Google Duo is great for video calls with other users who also have Duo installed. If you’re trying to communicate with someone who doesn’t have Duo, things get really complicated, and it’s probably easier to just call them using your phone’s dialer or use another shared app. Is one of the older applications on this list.
Using Voice, you can sign up for a free phone number from Google and use it to make free phone calls and send free text messages. If you download the Voice app from the Google Play Store, you can use that app to make phone calls, send SMS (including group MMS), and view and listen to voicemail. However, you can only do these things with your Google Voice phone number. In other words, if you wanted to send a text from your Google Voice number and then send a text from your regular SIM number, you would need to perform both tasks in two different apps. Same with phone calls and voicemails.
However, you can forward your Google Voice calls and messages to your SIM number, which then lets you control everything from one app. However, that app won’t be Google Voice. Best use: As it stands, Google Voice is perfect for people who use their Google Voice number as their primary number. For everyone else, it’s probably easier to use your phone’s built-in dialer for calls and Android Messages for texts.
Chat The upcoming won’t be a standalone app, but rather a behind-the-scenes system that is incorporated into Android Messages. After years of trying, Google finally gave up on trying to create a messaging app for Android that could compete with Apple’s iMessage.
Instead, it is getting mobile carriers to change the way they host texting, and that new method is called Chat. At its most basic level, Chat is just a code word for RCS messaging, which you can. The idea is that carriers will “turn on” Chat support, and then Android users will be able to communicate using RCS messaging with other users who also have Chat support. If either end of the conversation doesn’t support Chat, the fallback will be traditional SMS and MMS. Google knows that releasing yet another messaging app would be futile, as it has already proven that making a chat app work well is exceptionally difficult for the company.
With Chat baked right into Android Messages, you can expect Google to push Android Messages hard over the next few years. Round up Now that you know the details on each device, here’s a quick round-up of how you should be using each app: Purpose App to use Email Gmail or Inbox, depending on preference Instant messaging Hangouts (for now) Video calls Google Duo SMS & MMS Android Messages You should ignore as there’s no telling when it will be dismantled entirely, and you should only use if you have a Google Voice phone number (and use it a lot).
Using as your instant messaging app is fine for now, but even that service may get dismantled once Chat starts to take hold. Someday, Google might stop fighting it and release a single app that can handle your instant messaging, video calls, and texting all at once. Considering you can already do that with the Facebook app as well as WhatsApp — and — proves that Google is just being stubborn.
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