How to hide Google Meet in the Gmail desktop app

Google rolled out Google Meet, a revamped version of its Hangouts Meet video chat program, in April 2020, and made the app accessible to anyone with a Google account. You can start or join a Meet video conference right from your Gmail inbox, using the buttons Google has placed on the left side of the page.

But what if you don’t plan to use Meet, or even just don’t want it to be there all the time? No worries, you can hide the buttons. (Note: If you’re using a corporate Google Workspace account, you might not be able to change it, depending on your administrator’s settings.)

Here’s how to hide Google Meet in the Gmail desktop app. (You can also hide it in your Android or iOS app.)

• Open Gmail.
• Click on the cog icon in the upper right corner and click on “View all settings”.
• Click on the “Chat and Meet” tab.
• Next to the “Meet:” label, select “Hide Meet section from main menu”.
• Click on “Save changes”.

That’s it! And even if you hide the Meet shortcut in Gmail, you can still access Meet by going to https://meet.google.com/.

Updated July 28, 2021 at 11:30 a.m.ET: This article was originally published on June 4, 2020; there have been slight edits in the text, and one of the screenshots has been updated to reflect the interface changes.