Prior to the shutdown of Hangouts, we recommend you store your Hangouts data locally. However, Google has also stated that “some conversations or portions of conversations won’t automatically migrate from Hangouts to Chat.” Users who will be affected will see an email from Google about this issue. While the process happens, Google states that most data will be moved over for you to pick up where you left off.
This process is done in the background, and you likely already have your data in Google Chat. Google has already started the process of migrating users’ data over to Google Chat from Hangouts. Google expects this to take some time though, giving users at least until October 2022 when Hangouts will start the final stages of its shut down process. Just recently, an initiative to move users over to Google Chat has begun, with some beginning to see prompts to move over to the replacement app when opening and using Hangouts. The company announced that Google Chat will be taking the place of Hangouts and all users would eventually be moved over to the new app. The plans to shut down Google Hangouts and replace it with another messaging app by Google have been in place since 2019. How to store your Hangouts data with Google Takeout.
