Chat with people outside your company in Google Chat

Google Chat can work with people outside your company, such as clients, suppliers and partners. Whether it works for you depends on your admin’s settings, your plan and the other person’s account.

What decides whether you can chat externally

Several settings on both sides must allow it before an outside chat works.

• Your admin’s setting: your admin can allow or block chat outside the company, or allow it only with certain domains.
• The other side’s setting: if the other person uses Google Workspace at their company, their admin must allow outside chat too.
• Chat history: if your history settings do not match theirs, Chat may block the conversation. Your admin may control this.
• Your plan: one-to-one chats with outside people are possible on all Business plans if your admin allows them. Creating spaces and group chats with outside people needs Business Standard or higher. See our plans.

Message someone outside the company

If your admin allows it, you start an outside chat the same way as any other chat.

1. In Google Chat, click New chat.
2. Type the person’s full email address.
3. Click Start chat and send your message.
4. The other person gets a message request. You can chat once they accept it.

Chats with outside people show an External label next to the name, so everyone can see who is not from your company.

Add outside people to a space

Spaces must be set up for outside members when you create them.

1. When you create the space, tick Allow external members to join. See create a Google Chat space.
2. Open the space, click its name at the top, then Manage members > Add.
3. Type the outside person’s email address and click Add. They get an email invitation.

People who do not have any Google account may be invited as guests if your admin allows guest invitations. If you see “This type of external invite isn’t enabled by your administrator”, ask your admin.

For admins: turn external chat on or off

Only a Google Workspace admin can change these settings in the Admin console.

1. Sign in to admin.google.com.
2. Go to Apps > Google Workspace > Google Chat.
3. Click External Chat Settings.
4. Set Allow users to send messages outside your organization to On or Off. To allow only trusted companies, tick Only allow this for allowlisted domains.
5. Click Save.
6. On Business Standard and higher, click External spaces & group direct messages to control whether staff can create and join spaces and group chats that include outsiders.

Turning external chat off does not delete existing conversations, but your staff can no longer open them. For a client meeting, Google Meet works with anyone, including people without a Google account.

Still stuck

WhatsApp our support team at +60 16-916 3324.

Common issues

It says "Your organization doesn't let you send direct message to this person". What does that mean?

Your admin has turned off chat outside the company, or only allows certain domains. Ask your Google Workspace admin to check External Chat Settings.

It says "You can't send a message to them because their organization doesn't allow it". Can we fix it?

Not from your side. The other company's admin has blocked outside chat, or has not added your domain to their allowed list. Use email or a Google Meet call instead.

Why can't I add an outside person to an existing group chat?

An internal group chat cannot be turned into an external one. Start a new group chat, or create a new space with Allow external members to join ticked.

Related articles

• Send a Google Chat message & manage notifications
• Create a Google Chat space for your team & add members
• Start or join a Google Meet video meeting
• Add a new staff member to Google Workspace