In the present era, when all of us have to ‘meet’ safely; there can be nothing better than digital meetings, and Google Meet has set the right name for itself. While being available exclusively to G-Suite users only since launch, Google has now made Google Meet free for everyone, and with an added feature to create and join Google Meet meetings straight from Gmail as well.

You may have noticed a new Meet section in Gmail recently. That’s Google Meet integrated into Gmail. Here’s everything you need to know about using it.

Create a Google Meet from Gmail

In the Meet section on the left panel in your Gmail inbox, you’ll see the ‘Start a meeting’ and ‘Join a meeting’ options.

Click on the ‘Start a meeting’ button to create a Google Meet from Gmail.

Google Meet website will launch in a separate window. If you’ve never used Google Meet before, the first screen you’ll see is the browser prompting you to allow Camera and Mic access to Google Meet.

If that’s the case, click on the blocked camera icon on the top right corner to allow access to camera and microphone for Google Meet in your browser. Click ‘Done’ to close the dialogue box.

On the Google Meet joining screen, click on the ‘Join now’ button to join the meeting you just created.

The ‘Present’ feature here allows you to join the meeting directly while sharing your screen. This feature comes in handy during team meetings and student lectures to quickly illustrate things from your screen.

Once you’ve joined the meeting, you can invite others to it by sharing the Google Meet link or the meeting code.

To easily find the Google Meet link, click on the ‘Meeting details’ button on the bottom left corner of the meeting screen. You’ll see the Google Meet link there. Click the ‘Copy joining info’ button to copy and share it with anyone who you want to invite to the meeting.

You can do so by ‘Copy joining info’ and pasting to other member’s email or chat windows.

To get Google Meet meeting code out of the Meet link, copy the part after the / in the Google Meet link.

Below is the Google Meet code extracted from the Meet link mentioned above.

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When someone joins your meeting, you’ll get a prompt to admit them into the meeting and the participants count on the participants icon will increase to the number of people of joined the meeting.

Join a Google Meet in Gmail

If you’ve received an invitation to join a Google Meet by a meeting code. You can use that to join the meeting directly from Gmail as well. If you’ve received a Google Meet link to join, why bother with meeting Gmail at all, just click on that link and join the meeting.

Click on the ‘Join a meeting’ option in the left panel on Gmail to join a Google Meet with a meeting code.

A pop-up dialogue box will show. Enter the meeting code that you received as an invitation for a Google Meet and click the ‘Join’ button.

You’ll then get to the ‘Google Meet’ joining screen. Here, you can set up your camera and microphone, or turn off your camera before joining the meeting if it isn’t necessary to join the meeting with your video on.

When you’re ready to join the meeting, click on the ‘Join now’ button to enter the Google Meet.

Google Meet integration in Gmail Meet doesn’t bring any new features to either of the services. It’s only an added experience for you to be able to quickly create/join Google Meet meetings directly from Gmail, where communications about business/work happen anyway.