The blows keep on coming for G Suite users. Week by week, the features that they enjoy with their account seem to disappear or stop working. Last month, redeeming codes on Google Play was affected, then they lost the ability to rate apps and content. July is kicking things further as multiple reports have surfaced of users getting errors when trying to send a message with Assistant.

When someone with a G Suite account tries to send a message through Assistant on their phone, they get the error shown above: "Sorry, I can't send emails from this account." This happens whether they're sending a text or an email — yes, the error message mentions "emails" in both cases.

We've tried to get to the bottom of this by checking with several affected users, but the main commonality seems to be that they have legacy free G Suite accounts (though paid accounts could be affected too, we're not sure). They were able to send messages until a few days ago just fine, but they can't anymore. No settings were changed on their admin console, and the steps mentioned here to enable Assistant for G Suite have been followed correctly. I also tried suggesting uninstalling updates to the Google app, but most users say it didn't solve the issue for them — only one said it worked.

So far, the situation, as with all G Suite issues lately, is dire. People try to contact G Suite support, they get told this is Google's problem; they contact Google and get asked to reach out to G Suite support. A sliver of hope appeared when Carlos, a "Google Adviser," commented:

The G Suite support team will need to further investigate your issue, feel free to get in touch with them here: https://goo.gl/gsbe8m

However, none of the affected users are able to use that support page because they all have the legacy free G Suite accounts. Womp, womp.

For the third time in a month, users are left with no proper recourse. I'll say this again: Google, clean up this mess. If you don't want the legacy free G Suite accounts on your hands, then man up and say it out loud. Provide a way for admins to migrate accounts to a personal Gmail, with as little data loss as possible, and let these shenanigans end. This silent break-up is silly and it's angering your users because they had no idea what they'd be losing vs Gmail when they signed up for G Suite many years ago, there's currently no clear messaging as to what is/isn't possible with the legacy accounts, and there's no easy path to migration to a personal account.