Old Google Voice SMS messages from Hangouts now appear in the revamped apps

Abner Li | May 26 2018 - 6:43 am PT

Since Google Voice relaunched in early 2017, the company has kept to its promise of “regular” updates and new features. Last month, it notably began beta testing in-app VoIP calling for the Android and web client. The latest update now sees Google Voice messages from the older Hangouts integration in the new apps.

Hangouts has long featured this integration where users can use the company’s previous unified messaging solution to receive and send text messages with a Google Voice number. This compatibility remained after last year’s revamp and still properly works.

In switching over to the new Voice clients, users quickly noticed how SMS messages sent from Hangouts did not appear in the updated apps. This message parity is finally available with Google alerting users about previous history appearing with a new banner in the past day.

“Google Voice text messages you’ve exchanged in Hangouts now show up here.”

Appearing on both Android and the web, tapping the “Learn more” banner opens an inline support document. This functionality is already live with my old messages now properly appearing as I scroll down through the message history.

What happens when you turn off Google Voice texts and voicemail in Hangouts

You can read and respond to messages only in Google Voice.

Google Voice message history from Hangouts will still appear in Google Voice.

Voicemails will be stored in Google Voice and will be marked as unread.