You're in a Google Meet call with a client. Your teammate is about to give the price, and you know it's better to wait. You need to tell them now, without interrupting and without the client reading it.
The short answer: Meet has no way to do that. There are alternatives, each with its own cost, and there's a way to do it inside the meeting with a Chrome extension. This guide covers both.
Can you send a private message in Google Meet?
Not from the call's chat. At the time of writing, the chat in a Meet meeting has no one-to-one direct messages: everything you write there is seen by every participant, the client included.
So when someone looks up how to send a private message in Meet, they're really looking for something else: a side channel their teammate sees right away and nobody else can see. Those are two conditions, and most options meet only one.
The alternatives, and why they fail in a meeting
Meet's chat
It's the most convenient option and the most dangerous one. The message goes to the whole call. "Don't give a price yet" in the meeting chat is a message for the client.
Slack, Google Chat or Teams
The message is private, but it lives in another app. Your teammate is watching the meeting, as they should, so they see it late or not at all. And if they're sharing their screen, the notification can pop up on top of what they're showing. Muting notifications removes that risk, but it also means they won't see your message.
WhatsApp or a text message
It reaches the phone quickly, but nobody looks at their phone while talking to a client. If they do, the client notices.
A gesture or a look
It works for what you can say with one hand: "wrap it up", "keep going", "your turn". It doesn't work for "ask about volume", and it isn't invisible either: the client is looking at the same faces.
Breakout rooms or a break
Breakout rooms split a meeting into parts. They're made for workshops, not for whispering: if you both leave, the client is left alone; if one of you leaves, it shows. Asking for a break works once per meeting, not every time you need to give a cue.
A shared document
Some teams keep a document open to pass notes. It makes your teammate look at another tab, and if they ever share that window, the client reads everything.
How to do it with Psst, step by step
Psst is a Chrome extension that puts the message where your teammate is already looking: over your camera, on their Meet screen. Nobody else sees it.
- Install Psst in Chrome from psst.team and sign in with your Google account, the same one you use for Meet.
- Set up your team. Add your teammate by email; they get a link, accept, and that's it. You both need the extension.
- Both of you join the meeting. A quiet grey mark appears next to your teammate's name. Nothing else in Meet changes.
- Click their tile and type. Up to 140 characters; Enter sends it. You can also open it with Alt+P from anywhere in Meet, pick your teammate by name, or add several people at once.
- Your teammate sees it over your camera for 7 seconds and answers with 👍, 👎 or a short reply, which you see over their tile.
It works on Google Meet with Chrome on a computer. It doesn't work in the Meet mobile app or on other video call platforms.
What the client sees: nothing
The message is drawn in your teammate's browser, not in the video. It doesn't appear in the recording or the meeting transcript, and it isn't stored anywhere: it travels end-to-end encrypted and disappears after 7 seconds.
Screen sharing is the only delicate moment, and it's covered like this:
- If you share your screen from Meet, Psst hides before Meet starts broadcasting.
- If your teammate is presenting, you can't write to them: their tile says "presenting".
- If you share with another app, like Zoom or OBS, Psst can't know. That's what Alt+Shift+P is for: it turns on safe mode and hides everything.
The details are in the privacy policy.
Three tips to use it well
- One idea per message. "Don't give a price yet", "ask about volume", "let's close in 5". They can be read at a glance while your teammate keeps talking.
- Agree beforehand on who leads the meeting. A private message is for correcting the course, not for running the call from the back seat.
- Save the long stuff for later. If the idea doesn't fit in 140 characters, it probably belongs in the debrief.
And one rule that isn't a tip: Psst is not for secretly helping someone who is supposed to manage on their own, like in an exam or a job interview.
If you want to know where the idea came from, we tell the story in why we built Psst. Psst is free during the beta.
Add to Chrome