When you try to send someone a message in Google Chat, you might get a banner that says you can't message them. This problem happens if you have incompatible settings.
Reasons why you can't chat with someone
- Settings that block you in Google Chat or another product. Learn more about blocked accounts.
- Settings that don't allow the other person to chat outside their organisation.
- If they use a Google Workspace account and their administrator has disabled chats with external people, you can't send each other messages. Learn how to turn Chat history on or off.
- History settings aren't compatible.
- Important: If you have a work or school account, your administrator may set your history settings and may not allow users to change their history settings.
- You might be able to fix this problem if you update your history settings to be compatible with the other person's. For example, if your chat history is on and you send a message to someone that does not have their history on, you may be able to chat by updating those settings to match. Learn how to turn Chat history on or off.
- Tip: If both of you can turn off history, it automatically turns off when you chat with someone in a different data region.