Google Workspace

A report in the Wall Street Journal today revealed that the Biden-Harris presidential transition team has turned to Google Workspace in light of the current administration and US government not yet officially recognizing this month’s election results.

As previewed in August, Google Meet is now rolling out breakout rooms. At launch, it’s only available to Enterprise for Education customers and meant to aid distance learning.

Over the past few weeks, Google has been replacing the logos and icons of some of its most beloved services, and the public reaction has been… mixed. Some people don’t care, while others absolutely hate the new icons. If you fall into the latter group, here’s how to replace Google’s new icons for Gmail, Calendar, and other apps with the older, arguably better versions on Android, iPhone, and Chrome.

Since launch, rooms in Google Chat have had conversations grouped into threads. This approach made sense for some, but was a barrier to high-volume teams and contrasted with Slack. Google is now adding the ability to have unthreaded Chat rooms.

Earlier this year, Google set a final deprecation timeline for Chrome Apps. Ahead of that, the Google Keep Chrome app will stop working in February.

Google Meet continues its onslaught of pre-announced features today with the launch of custom backgrounds during video calls. This customization is a staple of modern conferencing apps, and one that helps convey “more of your personality.”

As of the start of this month, Workspace customers can get access to an integrated Gmail experience that includes Chat and Rooms. Google is now boosting the Gmail experience by letting Chat users set an “away” or “Do not disturb” status.

Have you received an email about a new comment in a Google Docs or other Google Workspace file you don’t recognize? Do not click the included link, as it’s likely part of a new source of spam emails that are abusing comments in Google Docs, Sheets, and Slides.

Google’s editing applications can open and edit Microsoft files, with that capability recently coming to Android. When opening Office files from the Drive web client, Google will now directly open them in editing mode. 

After coming to Gmail, Calendar, and Drive, the Google Workspace Add-ons side panel will soon be available in Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Google today also showed off a useful Translate integration.

Google last year brought AMP to Gmail to make messages more actionable and interactive. Drive will now send dynamic emails to let file owners manage requests directly inside Gmail.

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.

Over the past few months, Google has aggressively pushed its latest video conferencing service to new platforms from Smart Displays to Chromecast. Google Meet is now available for Glass Enterprise Edition 2 in beta.

Google Drive storage is very useful and, in the days of G Suite, business owners had the ability to get unlimited Google Drive storage. Unfortunately, though, unlimited Google Drive storage going away with Workspace.

As part of Google Workspace, the company is rolling out new branding for its productivity apps. Gmail — as teased last month — will be getting a new icon, with Calendar, Drive, Docs, and Meet also following over the coming weeks.