How to set your status in Google Chat

With Google Chat, you can easily keep in contact and collaborate with your team from anywhere in Google Workspace by Kimbley IT. There is even a desktop Google Chat app you can install so you can easily access Google Chat from your taskbar or dock. Of course, with all this collaboration, you may want to take a break from your computer and let your team know you are not about at the moment. 

Google Chat makes it easy for you to share your status. 

There are two types of statuses, automatic and manual. Automatic statuses are applied based on your known and current activity, and manual statuses get picked by yourself at a time of your choosing. You can access and change your statuses through the pill drop-down menu at the top of Gmail and Google Chat, next to the search bar.

Automatic Statuses in Google Chat

When you're online and actively engaged in Gmail or Google Chat, a little green orb is placed on your profile image, indicating you're online, available and likely to reply relatively quickly.

An orange orb gets applied when you have not been active in Gmail or Google Chat for over 5 minutes. Indicating to your contacts that you're about, but might only reply occasionally as you're not actively using chat. After 10 minutes of no activity, you're marked as being away with an empty orb appearing on your profile photo. This will automatically revert to a green orb as soon as you become active again in Google Chat or Gmail.

Manual Statuses in Google Chat

Along with the automatic status, you can also set your own manual status when the auto ones don't entirely cover what you want to tell your contacts. 

Selecting "Do Not Disturb" puts a "no entry" orb on your profile photo and turns off chat notifications for any time frame you choose. You can also set up a repeating Do Not Disturb schedule, which is perfect if you have specific times each day or week when you want to avoid getting buzzed about new Google Chat messages. 

It is easy to set your own customised status, such as if you're going out on a run, even drop-in an emoji or two if you like. These custom status messages will appear to contacts when they message you. You can also set a time for removing any custom status automatically. When the time expires, your status will return to the green orb if you are active or an empty orb if you are still inactive.