Voice Message in Google Chat?

[annahyvarinen]

Hey All,

I tried to go and give a suggestion for this feature in the other group but was not able to get in there.

I'm trying to house all my Health & Fitness Coaching services inside of Google Workspace and create an integrated system with all the Google tools. I love the Google chat and Spaces for all client communication!

My question and suggestion is if there is anything in the pipeline to add a voice messaging feature into the Google Chat, at least with 1:1 conversations? I know most coaches use voice messaging with client communication and also with official weekly Check-in responses, so this would be very big and beneficial add on 😄

I think at the moment, I can record a voice msg > save it to Google Drive > and then drop that link into the chat but it is a lot of extra steps. 

Hoping to see this feature coming soon 🙂

Thank you!

- Anna

[AndrewB]

Hi @annahyvarinen - I'd encourage you to check out Threadit. Threadit was built by a small team in Area 120, Google’s internal incubator and allows you to share short video recordings in Gmail for free. 

[bill_pier3]

And, (as I suspected), Threadit is now being integrated into Google Chat!  🎉

ref: threadit.area120.com 

[eofferma]

There are some option that should be activated? Where is it?

[Former Community Member]

is there an update now on voice message within google chat?

[SalmaDouidarr]

Still, not a solution for a voice note. Like whatsapp is the best with that. i wish google can add it and beat Whatsapp! 

[SaschaLo]

why? this has been deployed recently and you can send voice note to chats and groups?

[matthewgent12]

I have latest version and just checked. No option to record a voice note

[SaschaLo]

Are you checking from desktop or from mobile app (gmail)? Because in gmail app its definetly visible next to the image icon. 

In desktop app / browser its also not visible to me right now.

[Aryavan]

Hello @AndrewB - Threadit is a nice service for what it is, but it seems it doesn't really address the need expressed by Anna. Video recordings in Gmail on desktop fulfill a different need than voice messages in Google Chat.

Voice-only messages are for many people a huge part of 1:1 (and even group) communication, especially over the last two years. My team is still having to use Whatsapp for our individual communication, thanks only to this missing feature. This would be an amazing feature for Google Chat.

[Aimkbe]

Voice only messages would be amazing… I’m looking into What’s App, but its so easy with google chat already integrated into our work flows… Come on Google, this is a must feature!

[icrew]

You might want to post this to the Feature Ideas section here. See https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/Feature-Ideas/gh-p/workspace-ideas-group, and https://www.googlecloudcommunity.com/gc/custom/page/page-id/Workspace-Feature-Ideas-FAQ for how to get access. This will allow it to be upvoted by others and possibly considered as a future feature enhancement.

If you are submitting a feature idea, be sure to explain the problem that you're trying to solve with the feature idea, not just the idea itself. For example, saying "when my users are trying to do 'A', they often get confused by the fact that the buttons to do 'X' and to do 'Y' look quite similar to each other, which leads to this unintended consequence" is far more likely to get fixed than a feature idea that just says "change the color of the button 'Y'".

Cheers,

Ian

[Aryavan]

Hi @icrew,

Thanks for the idea! Unfortunately, as a Google Workspace for Nonprofits user, it appears I am unable to access that section. If anyone else sees this thread and is inspired to share a feature request with Google Workspace, you would have an (invisible) +1 from me!

Thanks,

Aryavan

[icrew]

@Aryavan : You need to request access. See the FAQ (the second link in my reply) for how to do that. 

Hope that helps,

Ian

[Aryavan]

Hello @icrew -- I had already clicked the button requesting access, but was told I wasn't eligible. Now when I click through it appears it will allow me to submit my request. Mysteries of the universe. Thanks!

Aryavan

[tobiasfeil]

It's understandable that you point to the issue tracker, but in my opinion, this feature is so basic that I'm baffled it hasn't been implemented yet, no matter if users request it or not. If you look at the major messaging services - WhatsApp, Telegram, Signal, even Instagram messenger - they all offer this and people use it all the time. I'm surprised this apparently hasn't been noticed by the Google Chat team. It would greatly improve user experience!

[matthewgent]

Agreed, we want to use Google Chat but we can't because all my users need voice notes so now I'm forced to use Whatsapp and I don't want to.

[bill_pier3]

Google Voice integrates with Google Chat, for voice calling.

[tobiasfeil]

It's about sending a voice message (asynchronously) vs a normal call (synchronously)

[bill_pier3]

Yes, and Google Voice support voicemail.

[sjlavena]

Google voice has nothing to do with voice messaging into google chat.

Imagine a conversation in a group inside google chat with 5 members of your team, 1 from a computer, 3 on the phone and you walking on the street... if you want to participate on that chat you can't phone call anyone, you need to send the voice message right there and you need to keep track of that conversation in the same place. This is one of the reasons of why whe moved from google chat to slack.

[bill_pier3]

And the ThreadIt integration will provide for asynchronous voice/video messages.

[alijdev]

Hi guys! just waking this topic up.

Would voice memos be integrated to google chat anytime soon?

[Manav007]

This is  such a basic functionality which is missing in google chat. Everything else is fine with google chat except for this and that's why we are forced to move to whatsapp and slack for team communication. Google, pls listen to us and get this implemented

[btz1]

Many basic features are still missing:

- Doesn't have audio messages
- Doesn't have the ability to quote messages
- Threads don't allow replying or quoting a message
- Doesn't allow listening to audio files from links
- Doesn't have a shared links gallery
- Doesn't have a shared photo gallery

[icrew]

For whatever it's worth (not much), I think you made the right choice. I'm a big believer in being aggressively vendor-independent. If Chat isn't what your team needs, use a different solution, like Slack....my organization uses both Chat and Slack quite a bit. There's really no need to lock yourself into a single vendor's ecosystem, and different vendors definitely have different strengths.

[SaschaLo]

No one here limits hisself to a single vendors ecosystem, but i think this is the right place to ask and discuss about features that are actually missing in google. 

[sajeshsf]

Did the integration happen ? It says. "As of December 2022, Threadit.app is no longer in service. The Threadit Area 120 team has been acquired by Google Workspace to help support async video efforts." 

[Aryavan]

Yes, it's been shut down "in order to integrate into Gmail", but who knows
when that will happen. But threadit wasn't voice notes, and it wasn't for
Google Chat, which was what was actually being requested.

[renanceratto]

This feature would be very welcome. Now we are using Slack as the standard communication platform, but I would love to have everything integrated in my Google Workspace.

I think the only major difference that lock us out of using Google Chat instead of Slack is this Voice Message, because it makes the communication much more fluid and fast.

[matthewgent12]

I absolutely agree. As soon as Google introduces a voice recorder feature into Google chat our company will move from WhatsApp to Google chat.

[SaschaLo]

Is there any chance / way to get this feature request prioritized with the google product team? @AndrewB