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The Setup

My organization is a part of G Suite, and our main domain has the classic Hangouts enabled. We're using it combined with applications such as Trillian, Miranda, Pidgin, Adium and other chat clients, for internal communication.

We're also using Hangouts from within our Gmail window, every now and then.

The Unknown

Seeing how Google announced that some changes will take place on the 16th of April 2019, I was wondering if any of them will affect the way we're using Hangouts now. That is to say:

  • will we still be able to use the chat clients (Trillian, Miranda, Pidgin, Adium, etc) like we're doing right now?

  • will we be able to search through the chat history from within our Gmail account, like we are now (e.g. "john smith" label:chats)?

  • will the chat messages be stored within our Gmail account indefinitely, or will there be a time/number of messages/character limit?

  • will they be exportable via Google TakeOut?

I've read the official information posted by Google, but I'm unable to understand the majority of it, and how / if it will affect the functionality my team and I are relying on at the moment.

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will we still be able to use the chat clients (Trillian, Miranda, Pidgin, Adium, etc) like we're doing right now?

Yes, unless Hangouts (or its future) will be shut down for good. The article did not mention any details. What the article says is: "We will continue to support consumer use of classic Hangouts"

will we be able to search through the chat history from within our Gmail account like we are now (e.g. "john smith" label:chats)?

Yes, you will be able to do so. Such a search is done in Gmail so it has nothing to do with upcoming Hangouts changes.

will the chat messages be stored within our Gmail account indefinitely, or will there be a time/number of messages/character limit?

Yes, messages won't be deleted. Again, it's a Gmail thing...

will they be exportable via Google TakeOut?

Yes, they will.

In other words, the article says that Hangouts will be upgraded to Hangouts Chat and Hangouts Meet while some futures will/may be discontinued and more other futures will be added.

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  • Thank you for your answer. I'm aware that the search is a Gmail thing, but what I didn't quite understand from the linked article is whether Hangouts will stay a part of it or not. Again, thank you for clearing that up.
    – FiddlingAway
    Commented Mar 15, 2019 at 17:02

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