Meta is shutting down its standalone Messenger web site, the corporate shared in a help page. Beginning April 2026, the web site will now not be accessible. If customers nonetheless wish to ship and obtain messages on the net, they’ll achieve this whereas logged into Fb.
“After messenger.com goes away, you may be robotically redirected to make use of facebook.com/messages for messaging on a pc,” the assistance web page reads. “You’ll be able to proceed your conversations there or on the Messenger cellular app.”
When you use Messenger with no Fb account, you then’ll solely have the ability to proceed your conversations on the Messenger cellular app. Customers can restore their chat historical past on any platform utilizing the PIN they entered after they first created a backup on Messenger. When you can’t keep in mind your PIN, you may reset it.
The transfer comes a number of months after Meta shut down Messenger’s stand-alone desktop apps for Home windows and Mac. The writing might have been on the wall on the time, as Meta had been redirecting present desktop app customers to the Fb web site to proceed utilizing the messaging service, fairly than the Messenger web site.
The change was first noticed by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi. Meta is notifying customers of the replace by way of a pop-up message on the Messenger web site and app.
Customers have taken to social media to express their frustration with the replace, with many saying they don’t wish to depend on the Fb web site to ship and obtain Messenger chats on the net, particularly those that have deactivated their Fb accounts.
Whereas Meta’s resolution to close down numerous Messenger platforms is irritating for customers, it permits the tech big to scale back prices by leaving it with fewer platforms to take care of.
Messenger first launched as “Fb Chat” again in 2008, and Fb (now Meta) launched Fb Messenger as a standalone app in 2011. Through the years, the tech big positioned Messenger as its personal service exterior of Fb, and in 2014, the social community eliminated messaging capabilities from its primary cellular app to push individuals to the Messenger app. Nonetheless, the corporate reversed this in 2023 when it started merging Messenger again into the Fb app.
Meta didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
