Meta is shutting down Messenger’s standalone website

Meta is shutting down its standalone Messenger website, the company shared in a help page. Starting April 2026, the website will no longer be available. If users still want to send and receive messages on the web, they can do so while logged into Facebook. “After messenger.com goes away, you will be automatically redirected to use facebook.com/messages for messaging on a computer,” the help page reads. “You can continue your conversations there or on the Messenger mobile app.” If you use Messenger without a Facebook account, then you’ll only be able to continue your conversations on the Messenger mobile app. Users can restore their chat history on any platform using the PIN they entered when they first created a backup on Messenger. If you can’t remember your PIN, you can reset it. The move comes a few months after Meta shut down Messenger’s stand-alone desktop apps for Windows and Mac. The writing may have been on the wall at the time, as Meta had been redirecting existing desktop app users to the Facebook website to continue using the messaging service, rather than the Messenger website. The change was first spotted by reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi. Meta is notifying users of the update via a pop-up message on the Messenger website and app. Users have taken to social media to express their frustration with the update, with many saying they don’t want to rely on the Facebook website to send and receive Messenger chats on the web, especially those who have deactivated their Facebook accounts. While Meta’s decision to shut down various Messenger platforms is frustrating for users, it allows the tech giant to reduce costs by leaving it with fewer platforms to maintain. Messenger first launched as “Facebook Chat” back in 2008, and Facebook (now Meta) launched Facebook Messenger as a standalone app in 2011. Over the years, the tech giant positioned Messenger as its own service outside of Facebook, and in 2014, the social network removed messaging capabilities from its main mobile app to push people to the Messenger app. However, the company reversed this in 2023 when it began merging Messenger back into the Facebook app. Meta did not immediately respond to a request for comment.