What you need to know
- Google Chat has received a new capability for sharing media files.
- The latest update allows you to send multiple photos and videos at the same time.
- Multi-pinning and picture-in-picture improvements have also landed on Google Meet on mobile.
With Google Chat replacing Classic Hangouts for everyone, Google is hard at work migrating many of the capabilities that made the latter such a popular messaging service. One of them is the ability to send multiple media files at once, which is now rolling out on mobile.
Google has announced via the Workspace blog (opens in new tab) that Chat now supports sharing multiple photos and videos at the same time on mobile devices. The new capability is available now on iOS, while its rollout on Android phones is set to wrap up by the end of this month.
The latest update gets rid of an annoying limitation with Chat. Previously, you were only limited to sending a single media file. Not only was the process time-consuming, but it was also disappointing that Google took so long to add this long-overdue feature.
While Google did not say how many files you can choose in one go, 9to5Google (opens in new tab) notes that you can send up to 20 photos and/or videos. For Chat’s web app, unfortunately, you’re still limited to sending one media file at a time.
In a separate update, Google Meet now allows you to pin the video tile of up to three call participants on Android and iOS. This capability was previously rolled out on the web. The feature is intended to help focus attention on chat participants who are most active or have the most important thing to say, such as your boss.
The good thing about these new Chat features is that they aren’t locked behind any specific Google Workspace tier, as the search giant usually does. This means you’ll be able to access them even if you have a personal Google account.
