why does it say jabber online? what does that mean?

Hi,

If you mean bottom left of the main window it is because you have an Jabber Account in Messages and it is logged in.

GoogleTalk is a Jabber account.

Open Messages > Preferences > Accounts

It should have 2 default items:- iMessages and Bonjour

Your Google ID can be used to chat with and Google run a Jabber server.

The latest versions of the Mac OS can turn On items for Messages in System Preferences > Internet account when you are not expecting it.

7:40 pm Tuesday; February 28, 2017

Hi,

In System Preferences > Internet Accounts > Google if that is the account in Messages you have issue with.

You can then deselect the option for Messages and the account will removed from Messages.

Or in Messages you can go to Preferences > Accounts and untick the "Enable this Account" box.

From about Yosemite onwards the - (minus) symbol under the list of accounts cannot be used in some cases if they are in Internet accounts.

Internet Accounts will tend to activate anything at an Upgrade process.

It used to be that in Mail and Messages that some IDs could be added and deleted in the App involved and later the Internet Accounts overrides this and does turn on some things you may not have had before.

Contacts accounts or Address Books that were not active can be another source.

In Messages the Window Menu show CMD + 0 to display the Main window if you hide it (use the red blob - it does not Quit the app)

IT uses CMD+1 for "Buddies" if you have a combined list from other accounts ( The default is to have a combined List.

If you use the Setting in the General Section of the Messages Preferences to NOT "Gather Accounts into one list" then they will appear in the Window Menu list in the same order as they are in the Preferences and start at CMD + 1 but go on to CMD+9 if you have many accounts.

The Buddy Lists when displayed show the people you could contact.

The Bonjour one will show other Mac on your LAN that are using Messages or iChat with the Bonjour account enabled.

8:40 pm Sunday; April 16, 2017

Does jabber show to anyone you're chatting with? Is there a way to make it go away if you never use googletaik (I don't even know ho wit would have been activated - I don't know what it is and don't set things up I'm not familiar with)?

Even if nobody else sees it it's annoying.

Jabber is a messaging protocol used by many popular messaging packages.

https://www.jabber.org/