Google Duo has another chance at life, but don’t get too excited

In 2022, Google merged its then-popular Duo video calling app with Meet, which, at the time, was limited to video calling for Workspace accounts. Anyone familiar with Google wouldn’t be surprised by this gesture, nor by the period of confusion that follows, during which multiple apps with similar use cases continue to exist. So, as Duo’s time came to an end, Google set a final date to hammer the nails into its coffin and announced that it would remove Duo’s legacy calling features in September 2025. This would be followed by deleting all older messages in November.

However, it now appears that Google has extended this timeline and legacy Duo features will stop working in January 2026. We recently witnessed the updated timeline in a warning message displayed at the top of the Google Meet app on Android. He support page it still shows the old schedule, although we can expect the renewed schedule to come into effect.

Considering Google isn’t extending it again, existing users who are still using the legacy Meet app with Duo features (i.e. those who haven’t upgraded to the newer Meet app in the last three years or don’t interact with others who do) will lose their call and message history starting in January.

To avoid losing your history or messages, navigate to Settings inside the app and then select Calling (legacy). Next, Select the Google account you used for Duo, then tap ‘Manage legacy call history’. Here you will see the option to Export legacy call history. Unfortunately, there is no way to associate this with your new Meet history and you will be able to share this data in plain text or copy it in .CSV format.

When the transition occurs, users will lose certain legacy features, including Knock Knock, Family Mode, and Mirror Mode. However, to make up for these losses, the new Meet app offers improved features, including cloud encryption and support for live captions.