You can now set yourself as “away” in Chat in Gmail.

When you set your status to away, you will show as offline to others, even when you’re active, helping you to focus solely on your work uninterrupted.

For domains that still use chat in classic Hangouts, disabling the “Show when you were last active” setting will now show you as away in Chat.

This feature is rolling out to Gmail on the web and the Gmail iOS app. It will be coming soon to the Gmail app on Android. We will post on the Google Workspace Updates blog when this rollout begins.

• Admins: There is no admin control for this feature.
• End users: This feature will be off by default. To set your status to away, select that option in the presence menu in Gmail.

• Rapid Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on October 29, 2020
• Scheduled Release domains: Gradual rollout (up to 15 days for feature visibility) starting on November 12, 2020

• Available to Business Starter, Business Standard, Business Plus, Enterprise Essentials, Enterprise Standard, Enterprise Plus, Education, Enterprise for Education, and Nonprofits customers
• Not available to Essentials customers

• Google Help: Change your Gmail availability & status