According to source familiar with the product’s internal roadmap, Google Hangouts for consumers will be shutting down sometime in 2020. That’s not surprising at all since Google essentially ceased development on the app more than a year ago. But just know, going into 2019, this is indeed your last year to keep using the beloved (?) legacy chat app.

Last spring, Google announced its pivot for the Hangouts brand to enterprise use cases with Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, so the writing has been on the wall for quite some time regarding the Hangouts consumer app’s demise. Meanwhile, Google has transitioned its consumer-facing messaging efforts to RCS ‘Chat’ and Android Messages following Allo’s misadventures.

Given Google’s abandonment of the app in terms of development and its presumed eventual death, many have already transitioned away from using it. But Hangouts is still the prominent chat option in Gmail on the web and the app remains on the Google Play Store to this day. Many recent reviews say that the app is showing signs of age, noting bugs and performance issues.

As mentioned, Hangouts as a brand will live on with G Suite’s Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, the former intended to be a team communication app comparable to Slack, and the latter a video meetings platform. Meanwhile, Google Voice calling, which was at first independent and then long integrated into Hangouts, was moved back out to its own redesigned app earlier this year.

Interestingly, despite its forthcoming axing, Hangouts was one of a few apps to get early support for Android Auto’s new MMS and RCS functionality, alongside Android Messages and WhatsApp.

Update 12/1: Google’s Scott Johnston has chimed in and denies that any decisions have been made about the timeline of legacy Hangouts’ shutdown. Confusingly, however, he says that users of consumer Hangouts users will be somehow “upgraded” to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet, both of which have up to now been presented as enterprise-focused products that fill different needs.

Scott also explicitly confirms for the first time that Hangouts ‘classic’, the subject of this report, will be shutting down “eventually.”

Meanwhile, a second source has since corroborated my initial report, and says decisions have indeed been made for the deprecation of legacy Hangouts.

https://t.co/QgYfj03ADn Hey @hallstephenj, I run Hangouts and this is pretty shoddy reporting. No decisions made about when Hangouts will be shut down. Hangouts users will be upgraded to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. Your source is severely misinformed. You can do better. — Scott Johnston (@happyinwater) December 1, 2018

1/ I can't comment on your sourcing, since I don't have any details. The frustrating part about your reporting is it leaves the reader to jump to dramatic conclusions, because it is only half the story. Hangouts users will be migrated to Chat and Meet. — Scott Johnston (@happyinwater) December 1, 2018

2/ So while that will result in the eventual shut down of Hangouts classic (as we now call it), it doesn't imply we are ending support for the use case supported by the product: messaging and meetings. — Scott Johnston (@happyinwater) December 1, 2018

Our response:

1/ I have immense respect for this team and their products; my report was not meant to disparage Hangouts Chat/Meet, which we have covered extensively since their announcement, nor to suggest that their use cases were going anywhere. https://t.co/3JtShmlIb6 — Stephen Hall (@hallstephenj) December 1, 2018

Update 12/2: A Google spokesperson this afternoon issued an official statement again confirming how Chat and Meet will be made available for regular users. The company is “fully committed to supporting classic Hangouts users” until a ‘succesful’ migration to the new services. No timeline for the transition was provided today.

In March 2017, we announced plans to evolve classic Hangouts to focus on two experiences that help bring teams together: Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet. Both Chat and Meet are available today for G Suite customers and will be made available for consumer users, too. We have not announced an official timeline for transitioning users from classic Hangouts to Chat and Meet. We are fully committed to supporting classic Hangouts users until everyone is successfully migrated to Chat and Meet.

We also added the word ‘classic’ to our headline to clarify, although the copy of the story remains exactly as was originally published.

9to5Google’s Take

Shutting down Hangouts has been a long time coming, so if anything, its retirement still being more than a year away is what’s surprising here. I’d venture to guess that its actual usage numbers are still significant given that Google’s initiative to build a true messaging alternative, Allo, flopped miserably. Meanwhile the ‘Chat’ RCS initiative that Google’s leading up still isn’t off the ground, either.

Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news:

FTC: We use income earning auto affiliate links. More.

Check out 9to5Google on YouTube for more news: