Gmail > 5.5: Chat instantly in mail

Chat lets you send and receive instant messages with teachers, students, other people at your school/district right in your inbox. You can view your chat list below or above your list of labels and you can have your chat boxes visible in your inbox view or 'pop' them out to view individually.

Your chats also behave like email – Gmail can save your chats so you can search them later, you can reply to an email with a chat (if the person is available) and have Gmail save the conversation as well.

Gmail Chat gets a list of people from your Contacts. You can easily add or remove contacts

You can also communicate face to face with your Gmail contacts using the voice and video chat feature. For more information, go to Voice and Video Chat »

Example:

You receive an email from a teacher, Jeff, asking what time you'll be heading to the staff meeting in the afternoon. You notice that Jeff is also available on chat - so instead of sending an email reply, you click "reply by chat to Jeff." You are able to instantly confirm the time you'll be leaving, as well as exchange some other questions. When you open the email Jeff sent, you can see your entire chat log as part of the email "conversation." You can also find your chat by going to Chats in the left side of your Gmail window.

Start a chat

You can chat with anyone who has a colored ball (or video camera, if they have video chat enabled) icon next to his or her name. When someone's online, a green, yellow, or red colored ball will appear. You may also see robot icons. This indicates that a contact is available for chat on their Android device.

Here's how to chat with someone who's available:

From Chat:

Find the name of the person you'd like to chat with.
Click the person's name to open a chat window.
Enter your message in the text field, and press Enter.
Wait for your contact to respond!

* You can also search for a contact by entering his or her name in the box at the top of Chat. Just enter the name of the person you'd like to chat with, and then enter your message in the chat window.

From Contacts:

Click Contacts along the left side of any Gmail page.
Select the name of the person you'd like to chat with, and click the Chat link to open a chat window.
Enter your message in the text field, and press Enter.
Wait for your contact to respond!

When you've finished chatting, click the X in the top right corner of the chat window to close the window.

Set a status and message

You can let your chat contacts be aware of your availability via the 'color' status. You can also set a short 'status message' that your chat contacts can read. Your status message can be anything you want - something funny, your favorite quote, a cool web link, or just a note to say you're hard at work or away from the computer.

To change your 'color' status, under Chat, click the arrow next to Set status here. Select the status you'd like to appear next to your name in your friends' chat lists.

Here's what the different statuses mean:

Green: Available to chat
Yellow: Idle. Your status automatically changes to idle when you're away from your computer for 15 minutes. You can't manually select to appear idle.
Red: Busy. This lets your contacts know you're busy and don't want to be interrupted.
Grey: Signed out of chat, or Invisible. (If you set your status to 'Invisible,' you'll appear to be signed out even while you're actually signed in. This means you can still initiate and chat with others, but your color will appear as if you are not online.)

In addition, you can create custom status messages that will appear next to your status 'color' availability. Here's how:

Click on Custom Messages to set a quick, custom message.
A dialog box will open. Enter your current status in the box and then press Enter or Return on your keyboard.
Your custom message will now be displayed below your name in the chat window. It will also be displayed when a contact clicks on your name in the chat window.
To clear your custom message, click the text under your name in Chat and delete it, or select another message from the status drop-down menu.

To access previously used custom messages, select the dropdown menu next to your chat avatar and then select Custom messages

If you also use the downloadable Google Talk client or the Google Talk Gadget, your status will be shared by the applications, as long as you're signed in to all of them. Please note however, that if you've set your status to 'Invisible,' and sign in to the Google Talk client, you will not be kept 'Invisible,' as the Google Talk client doesn't currently have the 'Invisible' status feature. Keep in mind that you can sign out of chat in Gmail, and still be online through Google Talk and vice versa.

More information:

Turn off chat

There are times and places to chat in your school Gmail account. If that's not your time or place, you can follow the instructions to turn chat off.

To stop chatting for the time being:

Under Chat, click the arrow next to your avatar
Select Sign out of.

After you sign out, your contacts won't be able to see you online or IM you from within Gmail, and you won't be able to see or contact them, either. dIf you use Google Talk and are signed in after signing out of chat in Gmail, your friends will still be able to see you online and chat with you through Google Talk.

To turn off chat completely in Gmail:

Under Chat, click the arrow next to your avatar
Select Chat Settings
Set your Chat settings to Chat off

You will be signed out of chat, and your Chat list will not be displayed. To turn chat back on, you will need to access your Gmail settings and turn Chat back on. Click the gear icon at the top of any Gmail page, select Mail Settings and open the Chat tab.

Chat notifications

If you have Flash enabled on your computer, Gmail will play an audio notification for each incoming chat. Audio notifications are turned on by default, but you can always turn them off. Here's how:

Click the gear icon at the top of any Gmail page, select Mail Settings and open the Chat tab.
In the Sounds section, select Sounds off.
Click Save Changes.

Save, search, and reply with chat

Save chat conversations

Your Gmail Chat history allows you to store the text of your chats in your Gmail account so you can easily search for them later. You can even respond to these chats like you would to regular Gmail messages.

To access your chat history, click the Chats label in your Gmail account. A list of chats will appear, similar to the way conversations are listed in your inbox. You can forward, label, star, and trash chats just like regular Gmail messages.

When you search in Gmail, matching chat conversations will show up along with matching email conversations. All chats are labeled Chats and are marked with the chat icon () so you can easily distinguish them from emails.

You can adjust your chat history settings in Gmail:

Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page, and open the Chat tab.
From the Chat tab:

Select 'Never save chat history’ to disable chat history saving, which means you will no longer be able to have your chats accessible later to view or search.
Select 'Save chat history' to enable chat history saving, which means you can access past chat conversations and include them while searching.

Click Save Changes.

Keep in mind that if you've disabled chat history saving, people you chat with may still choose to save chat histories in their Gmail settings. If you would prefer that someone you're talking to doesn't save your chat, you can take the conversation off the record.

Chat integration with email

Reply by chat lets you and other contacts at your school (students, teachers, staff) discuss an email you've sent or received using instant messaging. If you've turned on the Save chat history option in your Gmail settings, it also groups your chat history in the same conversation as the message you're chatting about. This way, you can keep all of your communications in context. In other words, the text of the chat that occurs after you start using Reply by Chat, will be saved as a 'message' in your email conversation. To learn more about conversations, review Chapter 2: Emails grouped by conversation »

Here's how to reply by chat:

Open the message you'd like to chat about, and make sure the sender is online and available to chat.
Click Reply by chat at the bottom of the message.
A new chat window will open displaying the subject of the email you're discussing. Click the X in the top-right corner of the chat window when you're done discussing the e-mail.

Please note: Chat histories are only grouped with conversations when you use the Reply by chat feature. If you close a chat window after you discuss an email with someone, and then initiate a new chat, your chat history won't be grouped with a conversation.

Keep chats ‘off the record’

Sometimes you do not want to keep the text of your chats for legal or personal reasons. If that's the case, you can take a chat 'off the record.' Chats that have been taken off the record aren't stored in your Gmail chat history, or in the Gmail chat history of your contact.

You and the person you're talking to can both see when a chat is taken off the record, and you'll be notified if off the record mode is turned off. Your off the record settings will apply whenever you chat with this person, until one of you makes a change.

To take a chat off the record:

Click the down arrow at the top-right corner of the chat window.
Select Go off the record.

To see a demonstration of going off the record, or turning off your chat history, click the video below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBwkvnyLXDE

When you take a chat off the record, a message will appear confirming that future chats with this particular contact won't be saved, unless one of you changes the setting. If you decide at any time that your chats no longer need to be off the record, click Cancel at the top of the chat window, or Stop chatting off the record in the chat window's Options menu.

Search chat history

When you complete a search in Gmail, you will automatically include any chats that are saved in your chat history in search results. If you are looking specifically for information stored in a chat, you can take advantage of the advanced search operators to search just within your Chats label. To learn more about search operators, review Chapter 4 - Search tips for finding email.

Suppose you had a chat conversation with another teacher, Jenny. You remember at some point in the past month she had mentioned a great resource for students about video editing. The information is somewhere in a chat with her, and you have chat history turned on, so you conduct a search for it in the Gmail search box:

label:Chats Jenny video editing

This query will then search just your chat conversations that involve Jenny, and pull results that match video editing.

You can also do a general search in your Chats by just using the 'label:Chats ' search operator. This will search all saved chat text, with everyone in your Chat history.

Add, remove, or change those in your chatlist

Automatic chat contacts

To get you started with chat, Gmail automatically determines some contacts that you have frequently emailed and adds them to your Chat list. This way you'll be able to chat and see other Apps members at your school online without having to send an invitation.

If you don't want Gmail to automatically turn on chat privileges with your most frequent contacts, follow these steps:

Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page.
Open the Chat tab, and select Only allow people that I've explicitly approved to chat with me and see when I'm online.
Click Save Changes.

Invite someone to chat

Before you can chat with someone in Gmail (besides the automatic contacts Gmail lists), you'll need to invite them by following the instructions below.

Your friend or colleague will see the invitation above their Contacts list in Gmail asking if they'd like to be able to chat with you. Until they accept, you'll see 'Invited' next to their name in your Chat list.

Once they've accepted your invitation, you'll see a status button to the left of their name in your Chat list, which indicates whether they're available (green), busy (red), idle (yellow), or offline (gray). At that point, just click on their name to send them a chat message.

To invite a Gmail user:

In the 'Search, add, or invite' box at the top of the Chat area, type your friend's username. If they're already in your Contacts, Gmail will pre-populate their username.
Click Invite to chat.

Customize your chat list

You can change the way your chat list looks to make it easier for you to use. You can choose how many contacts you would like to display, where your chat list appears in the left side of Gmail, and also who will always appear in your chat list.

To change the size of your chat list:

At the bottom of your chat list, select Options next to Add Contact.
Choose the size of your chat list by selecting Tiny, Small, Medium, or Large.

You can also minimize your chat list -- just click Chat at the top of your chat list.

If you like, you can move the Chat list to appear below your list of labels, instead of the default of appearing above. To move the chat list so it displays under Labels:

Click Settings at the top of any Gmail page, and open the Chat tab.
Select below from the Chat list location: drop-down.
Click Save Changes.

You can't reorder the contacts in your chat list, but Gmail's auto-show feature organizes your contacts for you, based on how often you communicate with them. However, you can make sure certain contacts always appear in your list.

Gmail's auto-show feature automatically selects the people who appear in Chat based on the people you already communicate with most often. If you'd like to add someone so he or she always appears in Chat, follow these steps:

Click Contacts along the left side of any Gmail page.
From the All Contacts list, select the person you'd like to add.
Beside Show in chat list:, select Always.

Block someone from chatting with you

Occasionally you may need to prevent someone from chatting with you online in Gmail. Blocking a contact prevents the person from talking to you and seeing when you're signed in to Gmail or Google Talk. Perhaps you want to block students from seeing when you are are online. Here's how:

Click Contacts along the left side of any Gmail page.
Select the person you'd like to block.
Beside Show in chat list:, select Block.

You can always unblock a contact as well. If you decide you'd like to communicate with someone you've blocked, just select Always or Auto from the menu beside Show in chat list:.

You can also unblock a contact by typing their name in the Search, add, or invite field at the top of your Chat list. Then, in the blue box that appears, hover over your contact's name and select Show in chat list.

Chat with a group

Group chat overview

The group chat feature lets you chat with many different contacts at once. There's no limit to the number of people you can chat with, and any participant can invite others to join. Group chat acts just as regular chat, except with more people sending and receiving the short messages.

You can take advantage of group chat in a variety of ways:

Lead an online Q&A session – many people can contribute and read questions/answers
Conduct virtual group meetings with colleagues, staff, organizations, etc. (And with chat history, you'll also have detailed notes!)
Hold virtual office hours

Start a group chat

To start a group chat with your contacts, follow these steps:

Start a chat with a single person in your Contacts list.
Once you've started the chat, click Options at the bottom left of your chat window and select Group Chat.
In the field labeled 'Add a person to this chat,' enter the name of the contact(s) you want to add to your group chat.

To end your chat, click the X at the corner of the chat window. Others in the group chat will get a message saying that you've left the conversation. If you want to rejoin, you'll need to be invited back by a contact who's still in the group chat.

The group chat will continue until everyone in the group has left.

Chat with voice or video

Overview

Since sometimes explaining yourself in person is quicker than typing out an idea and waiting for a response, you can now use voice and video capabilities in your Gmail chat. From within Gmail, you can have an actual conversation with someone (seriously, out loud), or even chat face to face over video.

This can be great in the classroom for one-on-one conferences with other school colleagues or parents (provided that the parents have a regular Gmail account and video chat enabled, you can also video chat with them). You can also save on cell phone minutes and avoid finding phone numbers using the contact-to-contact voice chat.

See how it works with this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=JFGJRfoK9xQ

Start a voice or video chat

Unlike regular chat in Gmail, you will need to download something for your browser to start using voice and video chat. Here's what you'll need to get started:

Download the Gmail voice and video chat plug-in, quit all open browser windows, and install the plug-in.
In the Chat section of your Gmail account, select the contact you want to call. If they have a camera icon next to their name, you can make a voice or video call to them; just click Video & more.

If your colleague doesn't have a camera next to their name in your chat list, you can invite them to download the Gmail voice and video chat plug-in from the Video & more menu in a chat window. Even if your friend doesn't have a video camera, you can still have a voice chat or a 1-way video chat.

Many laptops and computers come with cameras built-in, but if you don't have one yet and want to get one, here are some cameras that we know work well with voice and video chat:

For Windows desktops: Logitech QuickCam Pro 9000, Logitech QuickCam Communicate MP
For Windows laptops: Logitech QuickCam Pro for Notebooks
For Mac: Logitech QuickCam Vision Pro for Mac

Multiple calls at one time

If you’re in a voice call and make a second one, your first call will be put on hold while you talk on your new call. You can switch between calls by pressing the “Resume” button on the call you want to talk on, which will automatically put the previous call on hold.

Receiving incoming calls while you're in another call is just as easy: you'll receive a notification of the incoming call and can choose to accept it or not. If you take the new call, the previous call will be put on hold.

Whether you make a second call or not, you can now put any call on hold — useful in case you need to talk to someone in the room or grab something off the stove. Just press the “Hold” button and then “Resume” to start talking again.

This feature works across all call types (voice, video, and phone); the only restriction is that a maximum of two outgoing calls to physical phones can be placed at once.

The new Google+ Hangouts

Overview

The new Google+ Hangouts unifies chats, audio calls, and video meetings across all of your users' devices. Whether they're in Gmail, on the desktop, or on Android or iOS devices, your users won't miss a thing because all their Hangouts are synchronized. When you opt in, the new Hangouts replaces all other chat solutions, including Google Chat, Google Talk, and Google+ Messenger.

If you currently use Google+ Hangouts for video calling, you can continue to do so without enabling the new Google+ Hangouts.

As an Admin for your domain, you can opt in to preview the new Hangouts for your entire domain or for specific organizational units within it. Users will then have all the benefits of Hangouts on their devices. They can choose to opt in to the new Hangouts in Gmail.

The new Google+ Hangouts is not yet supported under our Technical Support Service Guidelines. For more information about support, see the Support for Google+ Hangouts article.

When enabled in your organization, users can opt to switch to the new Hangouts experience.

For reviewing important considerations before opting in, and how to enable and disable Hangouts in your domain, please visit the new Google+ Hangouts help article.

Google+ Hangouts enabled domains

Once you've enabled the new Hangouts, let your users know. Here's a high-level overview of things that they might find important:

Receive notifications across devices

Users will receive a notification across all of their devices when a message has been sent. They can continue the same conversation in Gmail, in Google+, on Android, on iOS, and through Chrome.

Hangouts message history

History is on for each chat by default in the new Hangouts. A user can decide to keep history on or turn it off for each individual chat. Regardless of whether users are on Hangouts, Talk, or in a chat that includes both, if one user turns off history, it’s off for all users in the chat. When history is off, the chat won’t be stored for future access.

If the new Hangouts is enabled and if history is off, the chat will remain in the chat area for a short period and then disappear.

Group conversations

Currently, anyone who is not using the new Hangouts will be unable to participate in a group Hangout. If users in a group Hangout invite someone who is using Google Chat, Google Talk, or a 3rd party chat app, the person will be unable to join.

Status messages

The new Hangouts does not have a field for users to write a status message.

Presence indicators

In the Hangouts list, if there's a green line under a profile photo, the person is likely on the desktop and will be notified about new messages or video call invitations immediately. If there isn't a green line, the person is likely on a mobile device, has Snooze Notifications enabled, or is idle.

1-on-1 audio calls

To call a phone number, click on the telephone icon next to the New Hangout search bar.

Third-party chat clients

Hangouts currently supports 1-on-1 chat with third-party clients. Hangouts does not support the XMPP standard, including XMPP federation. However, third-party chat clients can continue to connect to the Google Talk network and also communicate in 1-on-1 chats with Hangouts through the Google Talk network.

You can learn more about Google+ Hangouts by visiting this Help guide.