Google Chat has the following known limitations. Read each one carefully to make sure you understand the impact to your organization before switching users to Chat.
Interoperability between classic Hangouts & Google Chat
Direct 1:1 messages, new group chats, and in-line threaded spaces in Chat appear in classic Hangouts, and the other way around. However, legacy group chats and spaces organized by conversation topic in Chat do not work with classic Hangouts.
Learn more about Chat and classic Hangouts interoperability.
Group conversation and space participant limits
The number of participants you can have in a group conversation or space depends on the type of Chat:
| Chat type | Description | Maximum number of participants |
|---|---|---|
| Group conversation | Conversation in "Chat" section with 2 or more people | 400 |
| In-line threaded space | Single conversation stream (default space type) | 8,000 |
| Space organized by conversation topic | Separate conversations grouped by topic | 8,000 |
Use Chat with users in other organizations
- Users in Google Workspace organizations that have not yet turned on Chat won't be reachable through Chat. Users can message any external users in organizations that have Chat turned on.
- Users can still use hangouts.google.com for external chats, and the chats in classic Hangouts will then be mirrored in Chat.
- Users can’t add external guests to group chats created in Chat. However, users who have classic Hangouts turned on can create unnamed group conversations in classic Hangouts if the Chat externally setting is On. The classic Hangouts group conversation can then open in Chat as a new group chat with external guests.
- Essentials edition only: If your domain is not verified, users can't add coworkers outside their Essentials team to a group chat. Everyone outside the Essentials team is considered an external guest, including people in their larger organization. If the domain is verified, users can have group chats with anyone in their organization.
Mobile app experiences for classic Hangouts & Chat
When you turn off classic Hangouts apps or migrate your organization to Chat with the "Chat preferred" service setting:
- Users need to install the latest version of the classic Hangouts mobile app (Android, iOS) to see messages redirecting them to download the Gmail app. When they download the Gmail app, it’ll have Chat and Spaces tabs turned on. Also, users need to have Android 6.0 Marshmallow or above.
- Users on earlier versions of the classic Hangouts mobile apps will see all previous messages even though the app is turned off. They can't, however, send or receive new messages and won't receive any notifications.
- Users will be redirected to use the Gmail app to access Chat, but if their Gmail app is older than September 2020, they won’t see Chat in Gmail. Users should install the latest version of the Gmail mobile app (Android, iOS).
About voice calls
- Phone calls and text messages using Google Voice are not directly available through Chat.
Users can switch apps to use voice.google.com to make phone calls and send or receive text messages, or download the Google Voice app on their mobile devices (Android, iOS).
If a user hasn't already set up Voice on their Google Workspace account, your organization will need to get a Voice license for new users to sign up for Voice.
- Fi users: Chat doesn't work with Google Fi. Google Fi users with classic Hangouts as their default text messaging app for their device can still send and receive text messages using the classic Hangouts app on their Google Fi mobile device.
About video calls
Users can start and join meetings from 1:1 chats using Google Chat in Gmail on Android and iOS devices. Users with the Gmail app installed can also join and start audio or video calls from the mobile Chat app.
For other situations, such as group conversations and Chat on the web, the following applies:
- From Chat, users can join unscheduled online meetings through Google Meet by sharing a link to Meet. This is different from the video calling experience from classic Hangouts because there's no ringing or calling state.
- Users who want to join meetings from their phones should download the Meet application to their mobile devices (Android, iOS) and sign in to their Google Workspace account.
Video calls between a user on Chat and a user on classic Hangouts result in uneven results, as indicated in the table below:
| Caller | Recipient | Outcome |
|---|---|---|
| Chat call in Gmail on mobile devices | Classic Hangouts |
|
| Chat, when sharing a Meet link | Classic Hangouts |
|
| Classic Hangouts | Chat |
|
Learn about the limitations in the chat standalone app
For possible limitations, go to Use the Google Chat standalone app.
Find chat messages in Gmail inbox
For customers who adopted Chat before June 2020 with the Chat preferred service setting:
- If users haven't signed in to classic Hangouts, all chat messages go to their Gmail inbox to notify them of missed or unread messages.
- After they sign in to classic Hangouts at hangouts.google.com, chat messages skip their inbox and get filtered with the Chats label.
All users can still see chat messages in Gmail if they use filters to send chat messages to their inbox or if they view content with the All Mail label.
Developer and API issues
If you use the Google Workspace Email Audit API, the chatMonitorLevel parameter applies only to classic Hangouts, not to Google Chat.
For Google Chat, you can instead use a third-party archiving solution. To learn more, reference the third-party archiving admin help and developer help.
