During the COVID-19 pandemic, any free Google Meet user with a Gmail account can have unlimited group calls. However, this benefit has expired at the beginning of this month, and Google today elaborated on this restriction.
In April 2020, Google Meet was announced to be open to all users, and Google stated that it would not impose a 60-minute call time limit before September 30. However, the restriction was first extended to March 31 of this year and then extended to June 30.
Google did not announce another postponement in July of this year, and free Gmail users now have to endure a key group meeting restriction – calls with 3 or more participants are limited to 60 minutes. When the call reaches 55 minutes, everyone will receive a notification that the call is about to end. To extend the call time, the host can upgrade their Google account. Otherwise, the call will end after 60 minutes.
In other words, on free and corporate accounts, one-to-one calls can continue to run for 24 hours. The upgrade mentioned by Google is the $9.99 per month personal tier of workspace that was just launched in five countries. If the host is upgraded, the call can run for up to one day.
In practice, most users have no problem with the one-to-one duration, but group restrictions can be annoying because group catch-up/family calls can easily exceed 60 minutes. This period of time is reminiscent of work dynamics and does not really map to personal areas.
