As part of its continuing efforts to get feature parity with Zoom, Google Duo is now letting users add others to group calls via a simple link. Believed to have been first reported on by Android Police, the feature has been in the works for a while now. It was originally discovered through an APK teardown in April, and is now rolling out via the stable channel on the Play Store.
As per the report, creating a group in Duo will automatically generate a link that can be shared online. Anyone with a Google account can join the group using the link. People invited to join the group will apparently get the option to see the existing members before joining. Do note, however, that the feature only works on mobile devices and not on the web client.
Meanwhile, you can also invite people to join while a call is active. To do that, users will first have to tap on the menu button (three dots) on the bottom right. From there, they can choose the ‘Share link’ option to get the link and send it to someone else. The invite links are said to be live on Duo v89. However, they’re likely activated server-side, so it might not be available for all users just yet.
Google has been adding a ton of new features to its video-calling app of late. Just last week, it added 11 new emojis for users to choose from. Just days earlier, the app rolled out support for e-mail addresses and a Family Mode option.
