Meta is shutting down Messenger’s standalone web site
Meta is shutting down its standalone Messenger website, the company shared on an assistance web page. Beginning April 2026, the website will now not be out there. If customers nonetheless wish to ship and obtain messages on the net, they will achieve this while logged into Fb.
“After messenger.com goes away, you may be robotically redirected to make use of fb.com/messages for messaging on a PC,” the assistance web page reads. “You possibly can proceed with your conversations there or on the Messenger cellular app.”
In the event you use Messenger and are not using an FB account, then you definitely’ll solely be capable of continuing your conversations on the Messenger cellular app. Customers can restore their chat historical past on any platform utilizing the PIN they entered once they first created a backup on Messenger. In the event you can’t keep in mind your PIN, you may reset it.
The transfer comes just a few months after Meta shut down Messenger’s stand-alone desktop apps for Windows and Mac. The writing might have been on the wall at the time, as Meta had been redirecting current desktop app customers to the FB website to proceed utilizing the messaging service, rather than the Messenger website.
The change was first noticed by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi. Meta is notifying customers of the replacement through a pop-up message on the Messenger website and app.
Customers have taken to social media to express their frustration with the replacement, with many saying they don’t wish to depend on the Fb website to send and obtain Messenger chats on the net, particularly those that have deactivated their Fb accounts.
Whereas Meta’s choice to close down numerous Messenger platforms is irritating for customers, it permits the tech giant 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. Over time, the tech giant positioned Messenger as its personal service outside of Fb, and in 2014, the social network eliminated messaging capabilities from its principal cellular app to push folks to the Messenger app. Nonetheless, the corporation reversed this in 2023 when it started merging Messenger again into the FB app.
Meta didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
