Google Chat developer platform release notes

This page contains release notes for features and updates to the Chat developer platform. We recommend that Chat developers periodically check this list for any new announcements.

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December 18, 2024

Developer Preview: Quick commands are a new way for users to invoke and interact with a Chat app directly without typing a slash command. For details, see Respond to quick commands as a Google Chat app.

December 16, 2024

Developer Preview: You can now design your Chat app to include a carousel, which is a layout that rotates and displays a list of cards in a slideshow format, with buttons navigating to the previous or next carousel card. For details, see Carousel.

Developer Preview: Chat apps can now create (RPC, REST), update (RPC, REST), and get details about (RPC, REST) Chat space permission settings by calling the corresponding method in Chat API using app authentication with the https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.spaces or https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.spaces.create authentication scope, including creating announcement spaces.

To learn more about Chat app authentication, see Types of required authentication and Authenticate as a Chat app.

December 05, 2024

Developer Preview: You can now build Google Chat apps as Google Workspace Add-ons. For details, see Extend Google Chat.

December 03, 2024

Chat apps now have 90 days to complete the import of data. Previously, Chat apps had 30 days. To learn more, see Import data to Google Chat.

November 05, 2024

Generally Available: If you're migrating to Google Chat from other messaging platforms, you can now create a group chat in import mode using the spaces.create method.

November 04, 2024

Developer Preview: You can now use a read-only scope (https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.customemojis.readonly) to get or list custom emoji.

October 30, 2024

Developer Preview: You can now call the Chat API to get or update a user's space notification settings. To learn more, see the spaceNotificationSetting reference documentation.

October 24, 2024

Generally Available: The following widgets are now available for building card-based user interfaces:

Chat apps can use these widgets in card messages, homepages, and dialogs. For examples, see Design an interactive card or dialog.

October 10, 2024

Developer Preview: When creating custom emoji is turned on for a Workspace organization, you can now call Chat API to manage custom emoji:

To learn more, see CustomEmoji (RPC, REST) in the Chat API documentation.

October 02, 2024

Generally available: You can now call the Chat API to create announcement spaces, and read and update the permission settings of a space. For more information, see the following reference documentation:

September 30, 2024

Developer Preview: The following Chat API methods support app authentication using a new type of authentication scope, https://www.googleapis.com/auth/chat.app.*:

To learn more, see Types of required authentication and Authenticate as a Chat app.

September 11, 2024

Generally Available: The chatSpaceLinkData object has been added to the RichLinkMetaData field of the spaces.messages resource. This lets you add a smart chip to your message that points to a Chat space in any field that supports formatted text.

Generally Available: Google Workspace administrators can now call the Google Chat API to manage and search Google Chat spaces across their organization. This functionality lets them manage spaces at scale and automate common or repeatable tasks, such as the following:

For more information about managing spaces, read the documentation at Manage Google Chat spaces as a Google Workspace administrator.

For more information about searching spaces, read the documentation at Search for and manage Google Chat spaces for your Google Workspace organization.

September 10, 2024

Developer Preview: If you're migrating to Google Chat from other messaging platforms, you can now create a group chat in import mode using the spaces.create method.

August 16, 2024

Generally Available: You can now call Chat API using Cloud Client Libraries in addition to the already available Google API Client Libraries.

Benefits of Cloud Client Libraries include:

  • Idiomatic code that follows your preferred language's natural conventions and styles.
  • Consistent style across client libraries.
  • Handling the low-level details of server communication, including authentication, pagination, long-running operations, streams, and retries.
  • Installable using package management tools like npm and pip.
  • Improved performance in some cases, thanks to gRPC.

Additionally, our Chat API reference documentation now features a RPC reference arranged by services and their methods in addition to our existing REST reference arranged by resource hierarchies and their methods.

To learn more, see Install client libraries.

August 07, 2024

Developer Preview: The following widgets are now available for building card-based user interfaces:

Chat apps can use these widgets in card messages, homepages, and dialogs. For examples, see Design an interactive card or dialog.

July 08, 2024

Generally Available: You can now import a space from other messaging platforms, and allow external users to join that Chat space. For more information, see the externalUserAllowed option.

Generally Available: When building Chat apps using Google Cloud Functions, Cloud Run, or any system that supports authentication via ID tokens, you can now Authenticate requests using Cloud Functions or Cloud Run or Authenticate requests with an App URL ID Token to verify that the requests to your app came from Google Chat.

July 03, 2024

Generally Available: You can now call the Chat API to Make a Google Chat space discoverable to specific users in a Google Workspace organization using the accessSettings field on the Space resource. You can read the URI of the space using the spaceUri field.

June 28, 2024

(Generally Available): Dialogflow CX Chat apps can open dialogs and receive data inputted by users in card messages and dialogs.

June 26, 2024

(Developer Preview): You can now use the Chat API to create announcement spaces, plus read and update the permission settings of a space. For more information, see the PredefinedPermissionSettings and PermissionSettings fields.

June 25, 2024

(Generally Available): You can now add a Google Group to a Chat space using the spaces.members.create method or the spaces.setup method. You can remove a Google Group from a space using the spaces.members.delete method.

June 24, 2024

Google Chat apps can now create a subscription to receive events for all Chat spaces where the user is a member. To target all spaces for a user, set the subscription's targetResource field to //chat.googleapis.com/spaces/-. To learn more, see Subscribe to Google Chat events.

June 18, 2024

(Developer Preview): If you're a domain administrator or a delegated administrator, you can now include the useAdminAccess parameter when you call the Chat API with your administrator privileges with the following methods to manage Chat spaces and memberships in your Workspace organization:

To learn more, see Authenticate and authorize using administrator privileges.

May 22, 2024

(Developer Preview): If you're a domain administrator or a delegated administrator, you can now include the useAdminAccess parameter when you call the Chat API with your administrator privileges to manage Chat spaces and memberships in your organization. The following API methods are supported:

To learn more, see Authenticate and authorize using administrator privileges.

May 21, 2024

(Developer Preview): Dialogflow CX Chat apps can open dialogs and receive data inputted by users in card messages and dialogs.

April 25, 2024

(Generally available): You can now get and update a user's read state in a space, and get a user's read state in a message thread. User read states are singleton resources that represent details about a specified user's last read message.

The users.spaces resource represents a user's read state in a space. The users.spaces.threads resource represents a user's read state in a message thread.

User read states support the following methods:

April 24, 2024

(Generally Available): Build a Chat app that understands and responds with natural language using a direct integration between Dialogflow CX and Google Chat API. To learn how, see Build a Dialogflow CX Google Chat app.

April 23, 2024

(Generally available): Your Chat app can now send an app home card message to a user. This message is a customizable card message that a Chat app sends to a user when they open a direct message with the Chat app.

For details, see Send an app home card message for a Google Chat app.

April 22, 2024

(Generally Available): Google Chat apps now support Google Apps Script's Card Service. If you've built your Chat app using Apps Script, you can use Card Service to build user interfaces such as card messages and dialogs. For more information, see the Card Service reference documentation.

April 18, 2024

(Generally available): You can now update a human user's membership in a Chat space to change their role between regular member and space manager using the spaces.members.patch method. To learn more, see Update a user's membership in a Google Chat space.

April 08, 2024

(Developer Preview): You can now import a space from other messaging platforms, and allow external users to join that space. For more information, see the externalUserAllowed option.

March 28, 2024

(Generally available): Google Chat apps can get, list, and subscribe to events. To receive events, you can do the following:

  • Use the get() and list() methods on the spaces.spaceEvents resource of the Google Chat API.
  • Create subscriptions to events about users and spaces using Google Workspace Events API.

To learn more, see Work with events from Google Chat.

Events about deleted messages are now supported (Event type: google.workspace.chat.message.v1.deleted).

March 20, 2024

(Generally available): Google Chat apps can now use accessory widgets, which are interactive widgets that appear at the bottom of a message. For details, see Send a message.

March 13, 2024

(Developer Preview): You can now get or list events about a Google Chat space. For example, you can track periodic resource changes, such as monthly reports of new or changed members in a space, or fetch events that are missing from subscriptions using the Google Workspace Events API.

The following types of space events are supported:

  • A message is created or updated.
  • A member is added, updated, or removed.
  • The space is updated.

For more information, see the following:

March 05, 2024

(Developer Preview): Build a Chat app that understands and responds with natural language using a direct integration between Dialogflow CX and Google Chat API. To learn how, see Build a Dialogflow CX Google Chat app.

March 04, 2024

(Generally available): The formattedText field on the Message resource includes the markup syntax for bulleted list text formatting. For more information, see Format a text message.

February 20, 2024

(Developer Preview): Google Chat apps now support Google Apps Script's Card Service. If you've built your Chat app using Apps Script, you can use Card Service to build user interfaces such as card messages and dialogs. For more information, see the Card Service reference documentation.

January 17, 2024

(Developer Preview): Chat apps can now subscribe to events about users. The following event types are supported:

  • New memberships
  • Updated memberships
  • Deleted memberships
  • Multiple memberships have changed

For details, see Subscribe to Google Chat events in the Google Workspace Events API documentation.

(Developer Preview): You can make a Chat space discoverable to a target audience instead of inviting users individually.

January 10, 2024

(Generally available): Import data from your other messaging platforms into Google Chat. You can import existing messages, attachments, reactions, memberships, and space entities from your other messaging platforms to corresponding Chat API resources. You can import this data by creating Chat spaces in import mode and importing data into those spaces.

(Generally available): You can now migrate historical memberships when you import data into Google Chat.

January 08, 2024

(Developer Preview): Chat apps can now add interactive buttons to the bottom of messages. For details, see the reference documentation.

January 05, 2024

Chat apps can now send messages privately in spaces with multiple people. For details, see Send private messages to Google Chat users.

December 14, 2023

We've published a comprehensive tutorial and code sample showing how to build a Chat app using generative AI and a database, Manage projects with Google Chat, Vertex AI, and Firestore.

December 13, 2023

(Generally available): The Card Builder Tool is now available to help you design and preview card messages in Google Chat apps.

December 08, 2023

The Google Chat API spaces.list() method now supports app authentication for query filters.

December 06, 2023

Developer Preview: You can now get and update a user's read state in a space, and get a user's read state in a message thread. User read states are singleton resources that represent details about a specified user's last read message.

The users.spaces resource represents a user's read state in a space. The users.spaces.threads resource represents a user's read state in a message thread.

User read states support the following methods:

November 30, 2023

(Generally available): You can now retrieve Google Groups that are members of a Google Chat space using ListMemberships (with the showGroups option) and GetMembership. If you try to add a member to a Chat space while this member is already part of a Google Group in the same space, it triggers an already exists error (HTTP status code 409).

November 28, 2023

(Developer Preview): Your Chat app can now send an app home card message to a user. This message is a customizable card message that a Chat app sends to a user when they open a direct message with the Chat app.

November 15, 2023

(Generally available): Google Material Design 3 styles, including icons, are available for cards in Chat apps.

November 06, 2023

(Generally available): You can now call the Chat API from Apps Script with the Advanced Chat Service. To learn how, see Advanced Chat Service in the Apps Script reference documentation.

We've also updated the Apps Script code samples to use the Advanced Chat Service in the following Chat API developer guides:

November 03, 2023

Users can now install Google Chat apps from app listing pages on the Google Workspace Marketplace. For details, see Publish Google Chat apps.

October 30, 2023

(Developer Preview): Google Chat apps can now subscribe to the following types of events about message reactions:

  • New reactions
  • Removed reactions
  • Multiple reactions have changed.

For details, see Subscribe to Google Chat events.

October 24, 2023

(Developer Preview): You can now migrate historical memberships when you import data into Google Chat.

October 17, 2023

(Generally available): Multiselect menus for cards and dialogs are now generally available. Multiselect menus let users select Google Workspace users and spaces, or select items from external data sources. For details, see Selection input.

October 03, 2023

(Developer Preview): Google Chat apps can now monitor and receive events about Google Chat spaces. The following event types are supported:

  • New messages
  • Updated messages
  • New members
  • Updated members
  • Removed members
  • Updated space
  • Deleted space

To receive events, Chat apps create subscriptions using the Google Workspace Events API. To learn more, see the Google Workspace Events API overview.

September 28, 2023

You can now use the formattedText field to view the text formatting sent in a message.

September 15, 2023

Developer Preview: You can now update a human user's membership in a Chat space. For example, you can use the spaces.members.patch method to update membership roles from member to manager and from manager to member.

August 08, 2023

Google Chat users outside of Google Workspace organizations can now install and use public Google Chat apps. To learn about how users discover and use Chat apps, see Publish Google Chat apps.

July 28, 2023

Google Chat apps that authenticate as a user can now reference users with their email address. The following Chat API methods support using email addresses to reference users:

Chat apps can also use email addresses to @mention users. To learn more, see Mention users in a message.

July 13, 2023

You can now specify no divider between card sections.

July 10, 2023

Multiselect menus are now available in Developer Preview. Multiselect menus help users input static and dynamic data for Google Chat apps. To learn more, see the Selection input widget documentation.

June 07, 2023

Developer Preview: Available as part of the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program, which grants early access to certain features.

Import data from your other messaging platforms into Google Chat. You can import existing messages, attachments, reactions, memberships, and space entities from your other messaging platforms to corresponding Chat API resources. You can import this data by creating Chat spaces in import mode and importing data into those spaces.

May 25, 2023

You can authenticate and authorize users' credentials to access the Chat API by using OAuth 2.0. Authenticating and authorizing with user credentials lets Chat apps access user data and perform operations on the authenticated user's behalf. When an app performs an action with user authentication (such as creating a space), Google Chat might display an attribution message that tells users the name of the app that performed the action for the user who authorized it.

Oauth 2.0 scopes are available for you to request and your users to consent to.

Quotas and limits are applied to the Chat API.

The following methods are available:

March 06, 2023

You can now design your Chat app to include checkboxes, radio buttons, switches, or a dropdown menu in your Chat app. For more information, see SelectionInput widget.

January 18, 2023

Chat apps can now receive and respond to user-submitted information in cards and dialogs. For more information, see Process information inputted by users.

January 17, 2023

Buttons can now include text and an icon. Previously, only an icon or only text was allowed in buttons.

June 28, 2022

Cards v1 is deprecated. Instead, use Cards v2.

June 16, 2022

On the web, Google Chat cards now match Google Material Design. The Material Design cards feature aesthetic enhancements that improve usability and render faster.

May 15, 2022

Developer Preview: Available as part of the Google Workspace Developer Preview Program, which grants early access to certain features.

On mobile devices, Google Chat cards now match Google Material Design. The Material Design cards feature aesthetic enhancements that improve usability and render faster.