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Google sent out an “update to Album Archive” email today informing users that an old photo gallery UI related to Hangouts is going away next month.

Almost a decade after its launch, Google Hangouts is shutting down for good, as the web app will stop working later today.

As announced a week ago, Google is now in the process of shutting down classic Hangouts for free consumers. Many users are finding that they can no longer access Hangouts for Android and iOS today.

All Workspace customers were migrated to Google Chat earlier this year. Google announced today that classic Hangouts is going away for free users in October and laid out the migration plans to Chat.

At the end of last month, Google delisted its classic Hangouts app from iOS and Android app stores. Surprisingly, the soon to be retired Hangouts app has returned to the iOS App Store, but only if you have the link.

In the coming weeks, Google Chat will replace classic Hangouts for Workspace customers. As part of this, Google said it would disable the old Hangouts mobile apps, and that looks to be underway with the iPhone app now removed from the App Store.

Google was originally supposed to start the migration away from classic Hangouts to Chat in October 2019 for Workspace (previously G Suite) users. That switch was delayed, and the multi-stage plan did not start until June 2020. The final phase is now set for late March.

Messaging is a core part of any smartphone, and it’s something that Apple has really nailed with the iPhone and iMessage. Googlers have voiced their frustration recently over how Apple uses iMessage as a tool for lock-in and while Apple’s resistance to RCS and other cross-platform standards is certainly annoying, the context of Google’s countless failures in messaging don’t really help the company’s case.

In late 2021, classic Hangouts will stop working for enterprise Workspace customers and only Google Chat will be available. Google is now beginning that process of deprecating the Hangouts app and website for free personal accounts with a warning and sign out.

Google has a multi-stage plan to shut down classic Hangouts and move enterprise Workspace customers to Chat. This latest step in advancing Google Chat adoption takes place next month.

The writing has been on the wall for Google Hangouts for some time now, but soon Hangouts will begin warning of the app’s upcoming shutdown and migration to Chat.

Back in October, Google detailed how it would move users of its previous messaging app to alternate services in 2021. As part of the migration, Google has shut down classic Hangouts integration with both Google Voice and Fi.

Last month, Google started rolling out a free version of Google Chat ahead of classic Hangouts going away. The “early preview” of Google’s latest consumer messaging service is now widely appearing for more users.

A free version of Google Chat is officially set to arrive in the first half of 2021. As we spotted earlier this month, Google is starting the Hangouts migration with a “preview of the new Chat” for free, personal accounts.

For over two years now, we’ve known that Google was planning to kill off their classic Hangouts app in favor of opening Google Chat to those without Google Workspace. With the migration set to take place in the first half of 2021, Google Chat is preparing a beta test to open the app for Hangouts users to preview.

Google told Fi subscribers last year that classic Hangouts would no longer support texting or calling in January. A week before the deadline, Google has pushed back that deadline for MVNO subscribers to March.

Next year, Google Chat will go free ahead of the eventual deprecation of classic Hangouts. The Google Workspace team today is highlighting upcoming changes that will begin to launch later this week.

Back in October, Google announced that Chat was going free next year as part of the eventual deprecation of classic Hangouts. The company detailed several transitions related to this, including a change to group video calling that brings Meet into the existing Hangouts app.

In addition to announcing a Phone subscription program, Google today emailed Fi subscribers about how to “Move [their] conversations to Messages by Google.” Support documents lay out in detail what to expect and that Fi texting in the Hangouts app will stop working at the start of next year.

At the tail end of 2018, we reported on Google’s plans to replace Hangouts with Chat and Meet. The company later confirmed the news and has since been moving enterprise users to those two apps. Google is now ready to start detailing how it will transition classic Hangouts users to a free version of Chat.

In June, the classic Hangouts to Google Chat migration started in earnest for G Suite customers. Free accounts are expected to get transitioned next, and there are now signs that this is underway. Over the past few days, classic Hangouts users are receiving messages in Google Chat.