The death of classic Hangout app is on the horizon and Google initially planned to shut down the chat service in 2020 with the retirement process beginning in October 2019.
Now, the Mountain View-based company has extended the deadline to June 2020 for some enterprise users on G Suite who are not prepared to transition this year. The decision was made when a bunch of G Suite customers told Google that they needed more time for the transition.
Google has postponed any forced transition date to “no sooner than June 2020,” which means that the retirement process schedule for October won’t be strictly enforced. June 2020 will finally be the time when enterprise users will need to come up with another chat option.
For personal users of classic Hangouts, Google has not set a deadline to kick out the users.
In the meantime, Google will continue to optimize the user experience of Hangout Chat with features like read receipts. The company hoped to bring a smoother transition experience from its classic counterpart.
Users who want to transition to Hangout Chat sooner than the proposed deadline can use Google’s Accelerated Transition Program. Only a limited amount of users can access this feature right now and Google says it will allow anyone to join the program in the first half of 2020.
To read more about the transition timelines for Hangouts, head to Google’s support page for more detail.
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