After September 30, free versions of Google Meet will be limited meetings to 60 minutes. Google said in April that it would allow unlimited meetings through its video chatting platform Google Meet for all users for free until September 30.

The decision was made as demand and video conferencing requirements increased during this pandemic, and the company appears to be committed to this timeline and will not extend it.

A Google spokesperson said in an email: We have nothing to communicate with regarding the changes made to the promotion and the expiration of advanced features.

The video chat platform features will return to what they were for free users after September 30th.

Also disappearing on September 30 is the ability to access advanced features for G Suite and G Suite for Education customers, including allowing for meetings of up to 250 participants, livestreaming up to 100,000 people in one domain, and the ability to save meeting recordings to Google Drive.

Typically, these features are only available to customers in the Enterprise category G Suite, which costs $ 25 per user per month.

Google Meet and other video-conferencing platforms were chasing the rapid rise of Zoom during the coronavirus pandemic, as the number of Google Meet users in April exceeded 100 million participants per day.

Most users who do not want to upgrade to a paid Google Meet plan after the deadline end should limit their conference calls to 60 minutes or less.

In addition to making some of the privileges free, Google also pushed strongly to integrate the platform with Gmail, and introduced a new shortcut to the platform on Gmail for desktop and mobile devices.

The shortcut allows users to create a new meeting or join an existing meeting. The shortcut is optional, and users can always turn it off.

Google also introduced two new features to the Google Meet platform, such as background blurring, square layout, and Chromecast support.