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Free - Google Meet for Individuals (Previously for Businesses) @ Google

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Google meet is now available for unlimited use by individuals up until September 30. Afterwards, meetings will be limited to 60 minutes for the free product.

Note - Meet was previously available as part of G Suite, our collaboration and productivity solution for businesses, organizations and schools. The basic version of G Suite costs $8.40 per user per month.

A Google account will now be able to create free meetings of up to 100 people that can last any amount of time — though after September 30th it may restrict meeting length to 60 minutes.

The company announces that as of May 4, Google Meet, a tool previously exclusive to corporate customers, will be made available to individuals, allowing a wide audience to make group video calls.


Free Google Meet accounts for individuals

You can use Meet to schedule, join or start secure video meetings with anyone—for a virtual yoga class, weekly book club, neighborhood meeting, or happy hour with friends. Until now, Meet has only been available as part of G Suite, our collaboration and productivity solution for businesses, organizations and schools. Going forward, Meet will be available to anyone for free on the web at meet.google.com and via mobile apps for iOS or Android. And if you use Google Calendar, you’ll be able to easily start or join from there, too.

If you have an existing Google Account (for example, if you’re a @gmail.com user), sign in at meet.google.com to get started. If you don’t have a free Google Account, it only takes a minute to create one using your work or personal email address of choice (we require this step as a security measure, and you’ll only need to do this once).

Meetings are limited to 60 minutes for the free product, though we won’t enforce this time limit until after Sept. 30. Creating a trusted meeting space is important, and being mindful when sharing meeting links in public forums can help create a safe experience for all attendees.

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closed Comments

  • +6

    Bet you they still haven't figured out a way to migrate users on G Suite Free accounts to "normal" accounts yet :(

    • +2

      Don't accept any free trials, or upgrades from Google, you can't go back to the old Free settings.

  • +7

    Lol is this Google’s answer to Zoom and Teams? I absolutely like Microsoft teams. So much can be done. Don’t have much experience with zoom, but I can see the trend.

    • +1

      Agreed, powerful stuff. The best collaboration platform I've ever used.

    • +1

      Teams Giphy integration sucks though. Only very over conservative gifs are available.

    • +3

      I absolutely like Microsoft teams.

      Not available to everyone though.

      • +2

        There’s a free version of Microsoft Teams available, provided you don’t have a Microsoft 365 subscription. Launched in 2018 to compete with Slack.

    • -3

      Screen sharing on teams is horrendous.

      • -4

        What? I do this many times every day and it works perfectly every time.

        • +3

          It's great… when it works.
          Definitely requires both sides to have a decent internet connection.
          Also, launching an app via elevated permission breaks the controls, so kind of useless in that scenario.

          • @SuiCid3: I find Teams more tolerant of dodgy internet connections than Skype For Business was (and still is, I guess - we still have users using both).

          • @SuiCid3: If it's great when it works, and it always works, it's just great.

            In literally 100 hours of screen sharing, jumping between users, sharing controls and with simultaneous 5+ users all on webcam and on private home connections, I am yet to see it miss a beat.

            Meanwhile, I've seen Zoom have a fit several times when talking to family and friends, and I'm refusing to use it.

            • @klaw81: That's great!
              Be thankful you haven't had to screen share with someone that had a bad connection.
              1+ minute(s) of lag between the screen refreshing, if it refreshes at all lol.

    • Not an answer to Teams at all - just Zoom

    • +6

      I absolutely like Microsoft teams.

      We finally found him guys

    • +1

      Zoom is incredibly easy to set up.

      If my parents can do it to chat with their friends WITHOUT my help, they've nailed usability

      • +1

        I regularly use both, and think Meet is even easier, but lacks many of the features of Zoom (which is part of why it's easier -there's nothing to configure, no choices,etc)

        • I guess discord is too high level for most users and the interface is a bit more edgy and less family oriented than others.

          The email sign up requirement can be a bummer.

          Zoom is great no sign up needed just hit the link and go.

  • +8

    I find the audio quality of Google Meet to be superior to other solutions.
    Prior to social distancing when paired with Jamboard it was by far the best at picking up group conversations.

  • +1

    Just clicked on it and it says:

    "Your account only lets you join meetings"

    Is this targetted ???

    • +3

      From their blog
      "It’s important that everyone who uses Meet has a secure and reliable experience from the start, so beginning next week, we’ll be gradually expanding its availability to more and more people over the following weeks. This means you might not be able to create meetings at meet.google.com right away, but you can sign up to be notified when it’s available."

  • Seems to be an announcement which hasn't been enabled yet.

    Today, we’re making Google Meet, our premium video conferencing product, free for everyone, with availability rolling out over the coming weeks.

    It’s important that everyone who uses Meet has a secure and reliable experience from the start, so beginning next week, we’ll be gradually expanding its availability to more and more people over the following weeks. This means you might not be able to create meetings at meet.google.com right away, but you can sign up to be notified when it’s available

  • -4

    Free as in Free data mining?

    • That's BUSINESS 101, any/all big companies.

  • 5 days, how disappointing. Microsoft has many adaptable changes to help people during the Covid-19 crisis.

  • +1

    I thought this was Tinder for geeks

  • Can be use in blind dating experience?

    • Never seen it.

  • +10

    Or use jitsi.org which is always free, without limits and no registration required.

    I'm not going to say it is the best, but I've been using it for over 1 year and it serves its purpose well.

  • Is Meet just Hangouts rebadged or a completely new tool?

    • What would be your criteria for either option? I could answer yes to both

    • +1

      I'd suggest new tool but might share part of the old codebase as there are similarities.
      Meet has been a smooth & seamless video conferencing experience for many years. You don't need to install a plugin for video conferencing.

      Google Hangouts (Classic)
      Google Hangouts Meet ( Recently re-branded to Google Meet )

      Both were available for business/enterprise users, but Hangouts (Classic) has been deprecated in favour of Google Meet.

  • Reviews suggest its no where close to Zoom. Google needs to pick up their game.

  • Bit late, everyone's already on Zoom or teams

    • +2

      While it might be a little late, they are adding 3 million users a day and growing ( and that's before they open it up to the public )

    • +1

      I generally prefer to use Meet rather than Zoom. Zoom's user interface seems like it was designed in a kindergarten. Also, installing a desktop app to use a video call is a big nono from me (and Meet does not require any installation).

      But wasn't Meet always free for individuals???

      • +2

        Free to join, but to create a meet session previously required a GSuite account.

  • +4

    I use Zoom, Teams and Meet for work (contractor with diff clients) and Meet is def the winner in the quality and full screen of faces category. Teams wins when you are all already part of the team and use it regularly.
    Zoom wins for inviting outsiders.
    I'm hoping Meet will make it easy to invite outsiders and Zoom will allow more faces on screen when using the app.

  • We are using Meet for our students at school as it integrates easily into Google Classroom. If you create your own personal meet, is this going to be able to be used by people who don't have Google accounts? Currently I'm using a personal webex meeting for some virtual gatherings of a personal nature (not for work).

  • Extended until March 2021

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