Alternative messaging and calling services If you’d rather just go ahead and start using Google Chat instead, you can use it via the web or its mobile apps ( iOS or Android). According to 9to5Google, Google has already begun rolling out a preview version of Google Chat, a messaging app that appears to be a replacement for Hangouts messaging. While you may still be able to send chat messages to other Google accounts via Hangouts - we tested this in April 2021, and for now, chatting with other Google accounts appears to still work in Hangouts - text messaging from Hangouts is a different story, and like voice calling, you’ll now need Google Voice to send a text message.Įventually, however, Hangout’s remaining chat messaging functionality may also be on the chopping block in the future. I can’t send a message from my computer screenshotĪlong with the shutdown of voice calling in Hangouts, messaging has also been affected by Google’s recent changes to the platform. You can access Voice via a mobile app ( iOS or Android) or a web app. If desired, Google says you can export your Hangouts data until July 2021.
When you set up your new Voice account (or choose to use an existing one), you should bear in mind the following: Past messages from Hangouts should still appear in Voice, and you should be able to use your Voice number for voicemails, texts, and calls (including domestic and international calls made either via your mobile device or web browser).
GOOGLE HANGOUTS ON MACBOOK AIR HOW TO
If you’ve never used a Google Voice account before, check out our guide on how to set up a Voice account on your smartphone. At this time, you’ll need to set up and use a Google Voice account to make phone calls. Google recently shut down the Google Voice integration that made voice calling in Hangouts possible, which means you can’t place phone calls from Hangouts anymore.
GOOGLE HANGOUTS ON MACBOOK AIR FULL
When you look at Activity Monitor you see the process that is running as Chrome but it doesn’t seem to be hogging memory and CPU cycles like the full app does. I set it up and it seemed to work perfectly. It contains a script that makes a copy of Chrome, gives it a custom name and icon and only turns on the bare minimum to get pages rending and working.
So back to doing some more searching and I stumble across this site. Making the app was simple but when it started running there were rendering issues and I wasn’t able to see my friends list or chats. Seemed easy enough and made sense so I gave it a shot. I did some searching and noticed that people were making a standalone Hangouts app based on Fluid. So while it’s a good basic option I went searching for another option. Since there is no API Adium can’t support this. But the real power of Hangouts is the auto syncing that it does when you chat on one device and come back to your main one. Sure enough after downloading and setting it up it was working like a charm for basic messaging. I used Adium way back in the AIM day’s and remembered that it had Jabber/Google Talk support. Google never released a real Hangouts API so there are no app’s besides the ones they wrote which limits you to a Chrome extension on desktop. So with that I was on the search for the best stand alone Hangout’s app on Mac.
I switched to using Safari and gained over an hour of battery life, no joke. Well newsflash, Chrome on a 2011 MacBook Air is a resource hog.
I only use Hangouts to chat with a few friends but it’s a great service with one giant catch, you have to run Chrome. Most things have been working very well with one exception, Google Hangouts. I have been using my MacBook Air full time now for a little over a month.