Google Hangouts & Google Chat Disabled

Please note: UW Google is undergoing several major changes. For more details and regular updates, see UW Google Changes Project.

Overview

Google Hangouts and Google Chat are disabled in UW Google.

Google Hangouts

As of March 2022, Google is in the process of shutting down Google Hangouts. Google's intended replacement for Google Hangouts is Google Chat.

Google Chat

As of March 2022, the UW Google service team disabled Google Chat because of issues related to:

accessibility
data management
data retention capabilities
eDiscovery

The UW Google service team will continue to press Google on resolving the above issues. Unfortunately, we cannot offer an estimate for when the issues will be resolved by Google.

Alternatives

Alternatives to using Google Chat with a UW Google account include:

FERPA- and HIPAA-aligned Microsoft Teams, part of UW Office 365
FERPA- and HIPAA-aligned UW Zoom chat
Using Google Chat with a consumer Gmail account (please note that consumer Gmail accounts are not FERPA- or HIPAA-aligned)