Google Chat is the company’s chat app that became an official substitute for Google Hangouts in the Workspace suite. It is ideal for sending informal messages to your Gmail contacts or having conversations in an SMS-like format rather than exchanging several emails. But Chat lacks a number of contemporary features that we may take for granted in our preferred messaging apps. One such feature is voice message support, which Google has just rolled out.
Voice messages can now be recorded and shared using Google Chat, as it was previewed last year. For now, only paid Google Workspace users can use the voice messaging feature. Google said in a recent Workspace Updates blog post that voice message capability will gradually become available to users in the coming month. In particular, for the Rapid Release domains, the roll-out starts today and is expected to be completed by April 30 for all other eligible customers. The company states that web support will be available shortly, but for now, the capability is limited to the Android Chat app.
The Chat app’s shortcut for an image attachment will have a new microphone icon next to it once the new voice message support becomes available. Once you tap the record button, the message composition text field turns into a pill-shaped waveform indicator that has a timer along with a Delete button on the left and a Stop button on the right side. After capturing a voice note, you can listen to it again before sending it or tap it once more to send the recording.
Any voice messages you send will be treated as attachments as this is a server-side feature addition on the mobile app. It will be turned on by default. Workspace administrators can thereby disable this on a domain level, and users will be able to download voice messages from Google Takeout in the same manner as attachments. It’s interesting to note that Google facilitates voice notes with support for emoji reactions, quoted replies, and threaded replies in chats with people, groups, and even Spaces. Nevertheless, this capability is limited to a select group of Enterprise-tier account types.
Slack or Discord are great platforms if you want voice notes along with a ton of additional helpful features and automation. Google Chat is a newcomer to the group, but we can hope that there will be a significant update soon to fix this.
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