Google Workspace Updates: Block messages from unknown senders in Google Chat

December 17, 2025

What’s changing

We’re introducing a new setting in Google Chat that gives users more control over who can invite them to 1:1 conversations and spaces. While the default setting allows invitations from anyone, users can now choose to restrict incoming requests to known senders only. This restriction can be done for 1:1 conversations, spaces, or both. 

If a user restricts this setting, they can only be contacted by someone outside their organization if they’ve previously interacted with that person or if the person is in their contacts. Invitations from users who do not meet this criteria will be sent to spam. 

Note that this setting has no impact on messages between users of the same domain; these invitations will not be sent to spam regardless of whether the users have had prior conversations. 

Getting started

Block messages from unknown senders in Google Chat