
The alphabetical sorting of conversations means hunting down the person you were just talking to. It’s completely unwieldy with more than 20 active conversations. I used Hangouts and now use Chat in a professional environment, for more casual short form comms, and it’s clear after 6 weeks of heavy use that Chat wasn’t designed for anything more than light usage. Google Chat is at its best on the mobile app, but if you’re using it regularly, across mobile and in the desktop chrome extension, you’ll quickly see the questionable choices made by the developers. Unfortunately, that’s about where the improvements end. That’s really nice and a feature we were hoping for coming from Hangouts. Google Chat added the ability to have rooms where specific topic threads can be created.

Open the standalone app automatically at startup On a Chromebook, you can find the app from the Launcher.To open the app from Google Chrome, in the address bar, enter chrome://apps and click Google Chat.You won't have the option to manually install the app. If you already created a Google Chrome shortcut to, the standalone app automatically installs.At the top right of Google Chrome, click Customize and control Google Chrome Install Google Chat.At the top right of Google Chrome, in the URL bar, click Install Install.Tip: This pop-up window might appear shortly after you first use Google Chat.If the app isn't already installed, a pop-up window opens to download the app.


Important: There’s no Google Chat Chrome extension.

This provides a native app experience and is a Progressive Web Application (PWA). For a simple way to use Google Chat, install the Google Chat standalone app in your Chrome Browser.
