Meta announced on its help page that it is shutting down its standalone Messenger website. After April 2026, the website will no longer be available. If users want to send and receive messages on the web, they can do so while logged in to Facebook.
“When messenger.com is retired, you will be automatically redirected to use facebook.com/messages for messaging on your computer,” the help page says. “You can continue the conversation there or on the Messenger mobile app.”
If you use Messenger without a Facebook account, you can only continue conversations in the Messenger mobile app. Users can restore their chat history on any platform using the PIN they entered when they first created the backup in Messenger. If you can’t remember your PIN, you can reset it.
The move comes months after Meta shut down Messenger’s standalone desktop app for Windows and Mac. The writing may have been on the wall at the time, as Meta continued to use its messaging service by redirecting existing desktop app users to the Facebook website instead of the Messenger website.
This change was first discovered by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi. Meta notifies users of updates through pop-up messages on the Messenger website and app.
Users have expressed their dissatisfaction with the update on social media, with many users especially those who have disabled their Facebook accounts saying they don’t want to rely on the Facebook website to send and receive Messenger chats over the web.
While Meta’s decision to shut down its various messenger platforms is frustrating for users, it allows the tech giant to cut costs by having fewer platforms to maintain.
Messenger first launched in 2008 as “Facebook Chat,” and Facebook (now Meta) launched Facebook Messenger as a standalone app in 2011. For years, the tech giant positioned Messenger as its own service outside of Facebook, and in 2014 the social network removed messaging features from its main mobile app in an effort to drive people to the Messenger app. However, the company reversed this in 2023 and began integrating Messenger into its Facebook app.
Mehta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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