Google Chat

Google Chat feels basic and limited when it comes to status messages. While you can technically type up to 64 characters, the interface often truncates longer messages, so most of what you write isn’t fully visible. Unlike other platforms, there’s no reliable way to make your status stand out or fully readable in all views. Overall, it works for simple communication, but the status feature feels half-baked and frustrating if you want to share more than a few words. For a feature meant to express

I mean, if forced to use, ok, but really, the chat kinda sucks! If forcing a replacement, the least it could be is better than what is replaced. For desktop, there's no browser extension and the desktop app is basically just a browser without tabs. What is spaces and why? If this is something for businesses that use Google products, leave it on that side of things. Setting up groups worked perfectly fine. No separate space needed.

The entire conversation is left justified, instead of my chats on the right and everyone else on the left. Since there's not even individual chat bubbles, it's hard to scroll through and annoying to try to read through the conversation. Also, only being able to attach 1 photo at a time is a waste of my time. Furthermore, the video chat isn't convenient nor is it easy to utilize. Overall, a junk app.

It's an adjustment from Hangouts for sure. Chat is clunky in comparison and doesn't work as consistently. I want the option to combine chats and rooms into one page. I just want to see all of my most recent messages at the top of the page regardless of whether it's a "room" or a "chat". And like someone else said, I miss being able to see who has seen the messages.

Google is shooting itself in the foot by killing everything that actually worked. Google Chat is a copy-pasted version of Microsoft Teams. Not a single unique thing about it. That would be all well and good if they weren't killing Hangouts to make it! Hangouts was never great, but at least it was meh. Google Chat removed the side separation of chats, doesn't allow you to send more than one image at a time, you can't scroll between images, and in general is not a personal communication app. Bad.

Oh wow, we got rid of hangouts for this? File sharing is a mess and sometimes decides to open an external webpage to load videos (why?). Also uploading pictures is a mess too since it doesn't give the option to choose your preferred file manager or gallery, and it doesn't even work half of the time (you find the picture you want to share, select it, and you return to the chat without the picture you were trying to share). Overall, it's been a mediocre experience.

This app is a huge downgrade from hangouts, and I did not have a choice in the matter. I've been forced out of using hangouts. Using this app is an accessibility nightmare. I can't differentiate between who is talking because everyone is listed on the left, even me. There are no longer bubbles to encapsulate messages to be able to tell where one person's message ends and the next person's begins. There are zero accessibility settings, so I can't change colors or font size or spacing. Awful.

Works, but Hangouts was much better. As other reviewers have said, the lack of left/right chat bubbles isn't helpful. If someone sends a pic and I view it, then close it and re-open, it seems to have to re-download the pic, every time. I also cannot swipe to view previous pics in the chat. Then, it appears to be non-trivial to initiate a voice or video call with someone; but chat-in-gmail has that option right at the top, as did Hangouts. Overall, other posters were right, big step backwards.

Forced to use this because they blocked hangouts from working. It's worse. You can only attach one image at a time. It seems to struggle with sending/playing videos, but succeeds eventually. It splits chats between groups and individuals in different tabs for added time/clicks to access. There are probably other things, but the above is enough. It is simply worse than the app I am being forced to replace.

I wish I could give it 0 stars. I don't understand why they wanted to change chats into a commercial like app. It's a wannabe Microsoft teams. I don't want to use a platform like that outside of work. Getting rid of the chat bubbles makes reading chats difficult. "history is on" displayed in the type field is very distracting. The stickers are gone. I am livid about this change. There are also no options for customization other than the background color. Thanks for ruining a good thing.

Inferior in nearly every way to Hangouts. I can't figure out why some of my group chats are under "chats" and some are in "spaces," and am consequently always looking in the wrong one. The app also can't navigate to a Space from a push notification if the last thing you were reading was a Chat, and vice versa. Left-aligning everyone's text in a white background makes it very difficult to scan through conversations. The only improvement is that it seems to compress photos now for quicker sending.

Google Chat is the worst. I can't place my settings to see links in a web browser, I can't see all images in a chat and when I click on it the image is super huge and I can't adjust the size, I can't place more than one image or attachment at a time, I can't video call without creating a "team" or whatever that is. Please quit trying to be like Microsoft Teams or Zoom. It's just so many steps backwards from Hangouts. Bring Hangouts back!

Zero stars. Forced out of hangouts. Google chat is far less intuitive, infuriating, and extremely glitchy. Only about 20% of the images/files I attempted to send successfully go through. You cannot attach more than one image at a time, the spaces versus chat add extra steps to access your conversations and is clunky. I can no longer see who has viewed the message. Overall, I am beyond disappointed and frustrated with the chat platform and will be transitioning to a different platform asap.

It's like they took Hangouts and thought "What if we just made everything a little bit worse" Can only send one photo at a time, chats are indistinguishable from eachother, can't save photos by holding down on them anymore, grouptexts & individual texts are separated (which could be good for some, but it's a pain imo), and you can't even just call or video chat someone anymore. I like the dark mode and @ing features, but that's about it. They tried to fix what wasn't broken.

I honestly liked Hangouts way better than Chat. I sometimes don't get notifications that I have a new message or how many new messages I have. The view of the chat is too simple. I liked how their was a clear separation of messages (my messages on one side, then recipient(s) on the other side). More ability for personalization of the chat would be great.

Review would be way better if notifications would always appear, as I've had a few occurrences of them not showing, leaving me unaware of what my friends and peers are messaging. I've also lost access to the ability to send voice messages. I was able to before, and I'm unsure of if it was the last time I updated Chat that it got removed or if it just happened at random. So, yeah, other than that, my experiences with it are very good, otherwise. Thank you.

I was forced to update 6 hours ago and I've already run into an issue (several times). For some reason, whenever I try to share a screen grab, I have to pick from accounts. Neither account is my main account, and there's no option to add another. I'm pretty lazy with things like this, but due to the frequency with which I use this function, I'm finally considering an alternative messaging app.

Not the consumer product to replace Hangouts with. Not enjoyable for business either. Media integration is terrible, you cannot attach multiple pictures in one message. Instead it needs to be one picture at a time which is miserable. Clicking on an image does not allow you to swipe left and right to browse the selection of pictures. You have to back out and click each individual picture. There's no way to tell in named rooms who has actually seen a message which is miserable for business.

Compared to Hangouts, we traveled about half the Earth's diameter in distance going backwards. Everything in Hangouts was simple, right in one area and easy to access. Now, everything is everywhere, and not to mention that core functions are missing, it's much slower, I rarely get notifications, and it's 20 times more tedious to use. And the fact that you're forced to switch from Hangouts makes this downgrade a waste of space on your phone. Use something else if you want a good messaging app.

Hangouts was better. This chat feature really sucks. The way you send photos sucks. You can only send one at a time. And you can't click on a photo and scroll through what you've already sent. You have to keep scrolling up forever to find it in chat. Not to mention now the text us all on the same side which makes it confusing to figure out who typed what. And your messages muddle together. So when you send 2 messages it looks like one. This app sucks. I would not recommend.