How to configure Pidgin for Google Talk

Sunday, May 6th, 2007 by Lou

Pidgin, formerly known as GAIM, can be configured to connect to Google Talk.

1)The first time you open Pidgin you will see the welcome window.

2)Click Add.

3)In the Add Account window, add the following:

Protocol: XMPP
Screen name: your Google Talk screen name without @gmail.com
Server: gmail.com
Password: If you want Pidgin to log in automatically, enter your Google Talk password and check the Remember password box. The password is stored unecrypted on your computer, so you may not want Pidgin to remember your password for security reasons.

It should look like this:

Pidgin Account Info

4)Click the Advanced tab and add the following:

Connect server: talk.google.com

It should look like this:

Pidgin Modify Account

5)Click Save and you’re done.

UPDATE: Google now has instructions on how to do this too.

This entry was posted on Sunday, May 6th, 2007 at 10:33 am and is filed under Nerd. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

9 Responses to “How to configure Pidgin for Google Talk”

  1. Matt Says:
    May 8th, 2007 at 9:25 am

    Works a treat on Pidgin on Windows too. Thanks for the tip!

  2. Fredrik Says:
    May 9th, 2007 at 5:29 am

    Doesn’t work for me. Does port 5222 need to be open in the Firewall or something?

  3. Lou Says:
    May 9th, 2007 at 8:21 am

    What is the exact error message Pidgin gives you? You might be right about th firewalls. Here are some Google Talk help pages that may be useful:

    I have a firewall and can’t connect to Google Talk. Help!

    What ports does Google Talk require?

  4. Sam Says:
    May 10th, 2007 at 8:13 am

    Is anybody experiencing problems with not seeing all the buddies in Pidgin vs. Google Talk. For example, I can log into my gmail account and see all of my buddies. However in Pidgin, I can only see 2 or 3 of my friends. With the old version of GAIM, this was never a problem. Any clues?

  5. Lou Says:
    May 10th, 2007 at 8:44 am

    By default Pidgin shows only your contacts who are online. You can make offline contacts appear as well with Buddies -> Show Offline Buddies.

  6. Christopher Martin Says:
    May 12th, 2007 at 8:16 pm

    Although google does now have instructions on configuring Pidgin for Google Talk, it does not include the step involving the advanced tab, detailed above as “step 4.”

  7. balusss Says:
    May 13th, 2007 at 11:09 pm

    when i tried to configure pidgin in the above way, i am getting the following error:
    what should i do?

    xxx@gmail.com/gmail disconnected
    Couldn’t connect to host

  8. fro Says:
    May 14th, 2007 at 1:13 am

    Hey baluss, I got the same message until I clicked the “No proxy connection” drop down menu item in the “advanced tab” of the setup window. It worked after I did this. Maybe try that out.

  9. sweeterb Says:
    May 16th, 2007 at 3:05 pm

    Thank you for the tip, that talk.google.com was what was missing. Stay happy.