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Google offers many applications for personal or professional use. Google Hangouts is one of them that allows you to communicate with other Google users. It is a chat-based application that offers free messaging, video calls (up to 10 people), and internet/phone calls. Occasionally, you accidentally delete your Hangout Chats and lose your essential chats. At that time, you need to recover Hangouts Chat History/Messages. Don’t worry, proceed with this article to get an in-depth solution on how to recover deleted Hangouts chats with all data intact.
But before that, let’s discuss the key scenarios where you need to recover data.
When you need to recover Hangouts chat history
Here are all the prime reasons that will tell you about the necessity to recover deleted Hangouts conversations:
- Recover Hangouts Chat History/Messages to regain important personal or professional conversations lost due to accidental deletion.
- Get back all your valuable business discussions, shared files, critical decision records, and other Hangout chat history.
- Recover Hangouts Chat History/Messages to meet legal, compliance, or audit requirements with complete communication records.
- Safeguard your Hangouts chat history to ensure continuity after account issues, device failure, or unexpected data loss.
- Recover Hangouts Chat History/Messages to back up important chats before switching devices or Google accounts.
Recovering Hangouts Chat History/Messages is essential to prevent your data from theft or malware attacks. But now, your main question is how you can recover Hangouts Chat History/Messages?
Below, we will provide two different ways to recover deleted Hangouts conversations.
How to Retrieve Archived Hangouts Messages
As you know, Google officially retired Google Hangouts in late 2022 and transferred users’ data to Google Chat and Meet. Now, if you want to recover deleted Hangouts conversations, then you need to restore them from Google Chat. There is a free manual method available to recover Hangouts chat history using Gmail, and also an automated tool for quick data retrieval.
Manual Solution – Recover Hangouts messages in Gmail
After retiring Google Hangouts, all of your Google Hangout data is stored in Google Chat. Thus, it’s time to access your Google chat data through Gmail and then recover it for your future use. Let’s start recovering your Google Hangout chat history:
Step 1: Open Gmail and click on the Google Chat icon.
Step 2: Now, you can see all your Google Hangout users in Google Chat and access their direct messages.
Limitations of the manual procedure
As a manual approach is proven and easily applicable, there are multiple drawbacks that halt your recovery process:
- Hangout message gets permanently deleted: A message that has been permanently deleted from a user’s Google Account cannot be recovered using any manual technique.
- Dependent on Prior Archiving/Backup: Manual techniques are only effective if the messages were previously archived or a backup (e.g., via Google Takeout) was created before deletion.
- Time-Consuming for Bulk Data: Manually saving chats (e.g., as a PDF using a browser’s print option) requires processing each conversation separately, making it unsuitable for large volumes of chat history.
Now you are aware of all the drawbacks of the manual methods. Thus, relying on an automated G Suite backup is essential to recover Hangouts Chat History/Messages.
Professional Solution – Recover Hangouts chat history quickly
Recovering Hangout chat is difficult from permanently deleted chats. Thus, it is mandatory to take a routine backup of all your Google Hangout Chats using a top-notch Kernel Google Workspace Backup and Restore tool. The software allows you to recover Hangouts chat history in multiple file formats, such as PST, MSG, HTML, MHT, DOCX, DOC, PDF, and EML. Save and recover Hangouts Chat History/Messages in local/network/flash/external hard drives for easy accessibility.
Our Google Workspace Backup tool will help you to safeguard all your Google Hangout chats with all the attachments and chat formatting.
How to Recover Hangouts Chat History/Messages: Step-By-Step Guide
Here is a step-by-step guide to save all your Hangout Chat/History locally using our advanced software:
Step 1: Download, install, and launch the software. Click on the Google Chat Backup file on the software’s homescreen.
Step 2: In the following window, click on Next for further backup process.
Step 3: Enter Super Admin Email Address, Service Account Email Address, and Private Key Path (.P12) in Connect Source window. Click Next.
Step 4: If you want to save your Google Chat password, click Yes.
Step 5: The tool will show all the Google Chat Users. Select the necessary users, and click Next.
Step 6: In the Filters for chat backup window, apply necessary filters, select a preferred saving location, and click Next.
Step 7: In the Backup Options, select HTML or PDF accordingly and Click to start backup.
Step 8: The software will start the Google Hangout (Google Chat) backup process.
Step 9: The software will pop up Backup Completed Successfully message. Click OK.
Step 10: You can View Backup Logs of failed items and download a detailed summary report in a CSV file. Additionally, access your backed-up Google Hangouts messages using the ” Click to open backup folder” option.
Conclusion
The Hangouts messages become important when you are using the G Suite account professionally. As the permanently deleted data cannot be recovered using any technique, you should make sure that you have taken backups using the Kernel Google Workspace Backup and Restore tool at regular intervals. The user-friendly interface of the software uses the same methodology to export contacts, Hangout chats, and G Suite emails to PST. A routinely taken backup makes sure that the data is secure from any other threat or security breach.
