Unthreaded Google Chat Spaces will now let you know when someone deletes a message

One of the most frustrating things for me about the new Google Chat and its Spaces is that several core functionalities are missing that were present in Hangouts. I mean, if you use it at all, you’re probably already painfully aware of the fact that you can’t edit messages, you only recently became able to delete rooms, and formatting options have never been consistent across mobile and web until this past week.

Because I don’t utilize Chat or Spaces in an organization, I’ve never really had a need for other nuanced features that would be necessary in the corporate world, but one that I can see being very important to most users in that setting is the option to be notified when someone deletes their message or reply.

Google has now detailed exactly that! You will now be able to see who removes their message in an unthreaded (only) Chat Space. This should make it much easier to improve the flow and legibility of a conversation and let everyone clean up the banter or excessive speech in situations where they may get a bit out of hand or say something they regret.

As you can see in the two images, normal conversations will continue while a “Message deleted by its author” or “Reply deleted by its author” banner replaces whatever existed in a spot before it was removed. As with many of the recent Workspace updates, Google is rolling this out to both Rapid Release and Scheduled Release domains simultaneously.

If you don’t see the feature working right away, you may have to wait for up to two weeks from yesterday. Another bonus is that Google is giving deleted message notifications to all Workspace tiers, including those with G Suite Basic and Business licenses. Let me know in the comments if this sort of thing is valuable to you and your organization!