Hangouts Chat adds notification snoozing with return time visible to other users

Abner Li | Sep 18 2018 - 3:29 pm PT

Google’s Slack competitor is gaining the ability to snooze notifications. A staple feature of any enterprise messaging app, the implementation in Hangouts Chat conveniently alerts other users when you’ll return.

The ability to snooze notifications in Google’s product is not a true Do Not Disturb feature. Rather, users can block incoming alerts for 30 minutes to up to eight hours.

Use this feature to hide notifications on all your devices for a short period of time. Snooze notifications when you want to work uninterrupted, to take a lunch break or during non-working hours.

Once set, users will not be interrupted, with your status featuring a moon presence indicator. Conveniently, others can see a status of how long your notifications are snoozed for.

If you’re online and you have snoozed notifications, your presence indicator is a purple moon.
If you’re away from Chat and have snoozed notifications, your presence indicator is an empty moon.

Already live on the web, tapping the Active pill will dropdown a menu with increments of 30 minutes to one, two, four, and eight hours. It will be applied to all instance of Hangouts Chat on various devices. Meanwhile, on Android and iOS, users have to head to the app menu and tap “Snooze notifications.”

While useful for shorter stints, this is not a DND functionality that can be scheduled to trigger everyday. Such a feature would be a nice addition for users who leave open Slack or any other messaging client throughout the day and night.