Google Chat gets a long-overdue Gmail feature (plus a new home on the web)

Let’s face it: Unless your using it because your whole workplace does, there’s not a ton of us choosing Google Chat. But even with many of us failing to take proper advantage of it, Google keeps working on building out Chat with a nice assortment of messaging and administrative features. Today we’re checking out one of the latest there, as well as a new home for Chat online.

Let’s start with that latter point, because we’ve already had quite a few ways to access Chat. You could pull up Gmail in your browser and then just navigate to the Chat button on the left. Or if you wanted to get there directly, you could add mail.google.com/chat/ to your bookmarks. And of course there’s the Chat app on Android.

Going forward, Google’s adding a new option that, in retrospect, feels obvious: chat.google.com. Google says this new way of getting to Chat loads faster, while keeping the same familiar UI as before. The old ways of getting to Chat in your browser still work, although if you’re using a Chrome extension that’s built for Chat, you may need to update it for full compatibility with this new home.

That’s well and good, but it’s this new Chat feature that’s probably the change that’s really worth getting excited about: You can now start scheduling messages in Chat to be delivered later.

We’re not talking about just delaying a message for a few hours, either. Google says that users will be able to schedule Chat messages as far as 120 days out — so if you’re planning far enough ahead, we suppose it’s now possible to set up some alibis for yourself a solid four months down the road.

You can manage those scheduled messages in Chat drafts, and you’ll find a new shortcut surfacing on the left menu bar when you’ve got some there to manage.

Gmail, for what it’s worth, picked up the ability to schedule emails all the way back in 2019. We found evidence that Google was working to bring scheduling to Chat this past spring, but it’s taken until now for Google to press “go” on the feature. Access starts rolling out today, and most users should see it arrive by the end of the month.