Desktop app for Google Chat

An unofficial desktop app for Google Chat built with Electron

:mega: Since version 2.17, we have removed support for snap package on Linux

Motivation

• Google has shutdown the official Google Chat Desktop App in March 2021
• Google is forcing users to use PWA which has less features
• You don't want to install Chrome; just to use a PWA. :wink:

Installation (Debian Linux)

• You can download the latest debian installer from releases section
• Install the debian package with this command: (correct the file path yourself)

sudo apt install ~/path/to/google-chat-electron-xxx-amd64.deb

Uninstall (Linux)

• Logout and Quit from app
• Remove the app with this command

sudo apt-get remove --purge google-chat-electron

• The uninstallation script should remove all relevant files and folders.

Installation (Mac)

• Homebrew users can run brew install --cask --no-quarantine google-chat-electron

or

• Download the zip (darwin) file from releases
• Extract the zip file
• Move the app to your ~/Applications folder
• Fix the permission issue with this command

sudo xattr -rd com.apple.quarantine ~/Applications/google-chat-electron.app

• Above command should fix the Mac-OS Gatekeeper issue

Uninstall (Mac)

• Logout and Quit from app
• Move the app to trash

Installation Windows

• :warning: This app is NOT available on Windows App Store
• You can install this app by downloading the installer
• If you prefer chocolatey on Windows, you can run:

choco install unofficial-google-chat-electron

• If you prefer winget-cli on Windows 10+, you can run:

winget install --id=ankurk91.GoogleChatElectron  -e

Supported Platforms

The app should work on all x64 and Apple arm64 platforms, but due to lack of time; we test on most popular only.

Major features

• System tray
  • Unread message indicator
  • Offline indicator (no internet or not logged-in)
  • Close the app to tray when you close the app window
• Desktop notifications
  • Clicking on notification bring the app to focus and open the specific person chat/room
• Unread message counter in dock
• Auto start the app when you log in to your machine (configurable)
• Auto check for updates on startup and notify user if any (configurable)
• Auto check for internet on startup and keep retrying to connect every 60 seconds if offline
• Open external links in your OS default web browser
• Preserve window position and size
• Prevent multiple chat app instances from running
• CTRL+F shortcut to search

Acknowledgements

• @robyf for the initial work
• @squalou for enhancements
• All past contributors

Disclaimer

This desktop app is just a wrapper which starts a chromium instance locally and runs the actual web-app in it. All rights to the Google Chat product is reserved by Google Inc. This desktop client has no way to access none of your data.

License

GNU GPLv3 License