Google Chat adds granular notification controls so you can reclaim your sanity

Google Chat has gone through quite the metamorphosis lately – between it taking on the migration of pretty much all Google Hangouts users, its redesign and productivity improvements yesterday, and new features like ‘Quick Sync’, and closer Gmail integration, Google is on a roll with these updates! Today, it announced that it’s also adding granular notification controls for messages. You can use the following new notification frequencies to customize how often you’re pinged by your team members – a welcome change for sure!

• Notify always: You’ll receive a notification for every message and new messages will be badged.
• Notify less: You’ll receive notifications and badges for direct mentions, @all mentions, and followed threads. Additionally, there is an option to be notified about new threads in threaded rooms.
• Notifications off: You will receive no notifications, but you’ll see a badge if you’re directly mentioned.

If you have existing Rooms in Chat (of course you do!), the notification frequency may automatically be set to ‘Notify always’, but you can choose the three dots menu in the Room to change this to one of the other options (see above). Google hopes that by giving more control to users over their communication preferences, they can increase one’s engagement with conversations and help you stay on top of more important chats without feeling inundated with constant messages. I’m hoping they add the ability to mute Chats for a specific duration similar to how Discord does – it’s become a defining feature for me, and I think it needs to be adopted across the board! I wouldn’t be opposed to a snooze feature for Chats either – hint, hint.

Admins and users will see these sweet new options appear in Google Chat’s PWA at some point between now and the next few weeks – that goes for Rapid Release domains and Scheduled Domains alike, by the way. If you do happen to be a Workspace admin, you should take a peek at Google’s documentation on turning Google Chat notifications on or off in its web app and in Gmail. Let’s discuss in the comments what other features you would like to see come to the app since Google is basically fulfilling all of our Christmas wishlist items only three months into the year.

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