Important Upcoming Google Chat Features & Changes
Google Chat will be receiving two major (and positive!) updates that will affect your day-to-day use of the service, including a fresh coat of paint that will bring a more modernized visual experience and the conversion of older threading-style of Google Chat Spaces by “topic” to in-line threading.
Spaces threaded by “topic” will be converted to “in-line” threading
Spaces that were created before the “in-line” style of threading use threading by “topic,” which are now being converted to the newer style of threading. In-line threading provides a more modern experience that provides a more familiar chat experience provided by other chat services.
Along with this conversion, Spaces with the older style of threading will be unavailable very briefly, in addition to the conversion occurring on a weekend to minimize the downtime. A notice, as pictured below, will be shown when an affected Space will see a brief downtime.
Should a Space being converted be accessed during the few minutes of downtime, the message below would be displayed:
Finally, a converted Space will show mentions of where conversions took place, where threads were previously organized by topic:
Additional quality of life improvements
This transition also brings some new updates that will improve the general experience of Google Chat.
The separator that divides the main chat from a selected thread can now be dragged left and right to allow you to resize both sections to what works best for you:
A new “shortcuts” area will be added with two options: “Home” and “Mentions.” These areas allow you to quickly see updates for conversations you’re following and discussions where you’ve been mentioned:
You can customize what appears under Home in each Space’s notification settings:
Finally, you will be able to see who is interacting with a particular thread via new indicators that show who has most recently participated in a thread:
These updates have been indicated to release starting October 2023 into 2024. You can subscribe to our blog to stay up to date on the latest Google Workspace updates.
New modernized look for Google Chat
Additional visual improvements are coming to Google Chat in early-to-mid October 2023 which bring an improved and modernized design. Including the new features mentioned above, this also includes Chat bubbles, which are now more clearly differentiated to make it easier to see who sent what. Messages you send are displayed to the right, while incoming messages sent by others are displayed to the left:
Google Chat users will see this change on both Desktop and Mobile versions of Google Chat.
Categories Google Chat, Google Feature Updates and Changes, Google Workspace News, Important Changes