Google to shut down Google Talk on Thursday

Google is shutting down Talk (aka GChat) for good: You probably haven't used its instant messaging service much since 2007 (via Android Police). Although Google migrated Talk users to Google Hangouts in 2017, another of its now-marginalized messaging platforms, it was still accessible to third-party XMPP clients like Pidgin and Gajim.

But Google will cut these last life support lines on June 16, three days from now. In a message on the Talk support page, Google says that it is "winding down Google Talk" and will no longer support third-party apps, citing its initial announcement in 2017. As a result, users who try to log into GChat after the 16th will see a start of session mistake. If you still want to use Pidgin through Google services, Pidgin recommends using this plugin for Google Chat instead.

Google Talk emerged in 2005 as a way for users to send instant messages directly through Gmail. It later expanded to voice and video calls and even allowed group chats. However, Google discontinued the service in 2017 in favour of Hangouts. Introduced a messaging service in 2014 that Google was highlighting at the time.

But in typical Google fashion, it had to shake things up for users one more time, rebranding Hangouts Chat as Google Chat in 2020 and then replacing the original Hangouts with Google Chat for Workspace users earlier this year. Hangouts is still available on the web for free Google account users, but they'll also see warnings that "Hangouts is going away soon," with links that take them to Google Chat.

Google encourages people who accessed Google Talk through third-party apps to transition to Google Chat but don't get too comfortable. If history is any indication, it won't be long until Google changes its messaging approach with another new service or rebrand.