And that's really it! As long as you're signed into your Gmail account, you can automatically start or join a meeting. If you already have a Gmail account, simply head to and either click the green "Start a Meeting" button or enter a Meeting ID in the field to the right.
Still, it's not always clear when you should jump to using Google Meet, rather than Duo-you'll definitely need Meet for calls with multiple people (it supports calls with two to 250 people), but you could use either for a one-on-one cocktail hour. It also offers Duo, which is more analogous to a Facetime call than a Zoom meeting. In a confusing twist, this is not Google's first video app. The premium service (which lets you add more users and record calls) is free for everyone until September 30, and after that will cost $6 per month.
It's available for free on the App Store for iOS devices, as well as the Google Play market. Whether you prefer to video chat on mobile, or on your laptop, you can use Google Meet. There's another major platform called Google Meet (previously called Google Hangouts Meet), which basically didn't exist before the outbreak, except as a corporate video conferencing tool for companies using Google's paid suite of software.īut now, anyone can use Google Meet, and here's what you should know. There's Skype, but it's not exactly in style, and Zoom, but it has a whole hoard of security issues.