If you allow it, your Google Chat users can chat with people outside your organization. These people may be:
- External users (labeled yellow in Chat conversations): Users outside your organization who have a Google Workspace account. They need to be a Google Workspace user or have an account that ends with @gmail.com or a non-Gmail Google Account. If the external contact is a Google Workspace user their administrator needs to turn on Google Chat for their organization. Otherwise they won't receive an invite and won't be able to join the Chat space or reply to direct messages.
- Guest accounts (labeled teal in Chat conversations): Users outside your organization who don’t have a Workspace account. These users might use different email systems (such as @hotmail.com or a company domain). You invite guests into your Chat for temporary, secure collaboration. Your organization controls these guest accounts and any data they create.
How external chat works
- Chat respects the Chat externally setting for your organization.
- Depending on your edition, you can also use the External spaces setting to control whether users can create or join external spaces created by your organization. Regardless of this setting, users can join spaces created by other organizations if Chat externally is enabled.
- Space members and Chat apps with the proper authorization can invite external users and guests to a space if the External spaces setting is turned on.
- Only the retention and auto-deletion policies of the conversation creator apply to messages in a conversation. Organizations with an active Vault policy can still retain all conversations, regardless of who created it.
- For privacy and abuse protection, when you add an external user to a message thread or space, they'll be invited instead of directly added. Invited users get an email invitation and their Chat roster and "Browse spaces" screen show they were invited. Users can block and report someone if they get unwanted messages.
- When you add a guest to a message thread or space, they get an invitation to create a guest account. After they sign up, they are added directly to the message thread or space.
- Users can't create spaces that allow external users or guests and have organization-wide visibility.
External users can see content posted by internal users, apps, and webhooks in spaces. Chat apps can also request authentication from external users to access data on behalf of an external user. For details, go to Asynchronous messages require authentication.
External users and guests can't:
- Add and remove apps or webhooks from a space
- Interact with apps in a space. For example, mentions, slash commands, clicks on cards posted by the app, and so on, are disabled. For details, go to Use apps in Google Chat.
- Have their messages augmented with link previews from third-party apps
For more details about guest accounts, go to Manage Workspace guests.
Known limitations for external users
- Users in Google Workspace organizations that haven't turned on Chat aren't reachable through Chat. Users can message any external users in organizations that have Chat turned on.
- You must decide whether a space is external when you create the space. You can't change this setting later.
- You can't add an external user to a group message in Chat. You can only chat externally with a 1:1 direct message or in a space that allows external members.
Known limitation for guest accounts
Guest invitations can’t be sent to email IDs that are associated with Google accounts. The following account types aren't eligible for guest accounts and must use external chat instead:
- Google Workspace Essentials Starter accounts
- Consumer Gmail accounts
- Consumer accounts created with non-gmail.com email IDs (email-verified accounts)
- Existing Workspace accounts
Setting up trusted domains prevents your organization from collaborating with consumer Google accounts. This means you can't collaborate with non-Workspace users, because they might have created consumer Google accounts using their work email address.
If your organization has a Workspace domain with Partial Domain Licensing (PDL), the domain can include some users who can be invited as guests (those without Workspace accounts) and other users who can’t be invited as guests (those with Workspace accounts).
Common error messages: external users and guest accounts
| Error message as seen by the inviter | Description |
|---|---|
| This user doesn’t have Google Chat enabled. | Chat is turned off for the invitee's Workspace account. The invitee’s administrator must turn on Chat for this account. |
| This user's account is still being set up. Please try again later. | The account you're contacting is still new, and there might be a short wait before it is activated in Chat. |
| Can't start a direct message right now. Try again later. | A temporary error occurred. Retry later. |
| This conversation can’t be created due to conflicting history retention or data location policies. | There's a conflict in how each account (the inviter's and the invitee's) saves message history or location data. This conflict must be fixed by one or both of the account administrators. |
|
You can't send a message to them because their organization doesn't allow it. You can't message the user(s) because of a policy set by their administrator. |
Your organization's domain isn’t in the invitee organization’s allowlist. Contact the invitee's administrator for help. |
|
Your organization doesn't let you send direct message to this person. You can't message the user(s) because of a policy set by your administrator. |
The invitee’s domain isn't in your organization’s allowlist. |
| You’ve blocked this user. Unblock them to send a message. | The inviter has blocked the invitee. |
Common error messages: guest accounts
| Error message | Description |
|---|---|
|
Your organization doesn't let you send a direct message to this person. You can’t message the user(s) because of a policy set by your administrator. |
The invitee’s domain isn't in your organization’s allowlist. |
| Can’t invite user. Org limit to add non-Workspace users met. Contact admin. | Your organization has exceeded the limit for the number of guests. |
| Can’t invite user. This type of external invite isn’t enabled by your administrator. | The inviter isn't allowed to invite guests. An administrator must turn on the guest invitation privilege. |