Meta is shutting down its standalone Messenger website, the company announced on its help page. Starting April 2026, users will no longer access messenger.com. Instead, anyone who wants to send and receive messages on the web will need to log into Facebook and use facebook.com/messages.
“After messenger.com goes away, you will be automatically redirected to use facebook.com/messages for messaging on a computer,” the help page explains. “You can continue your conversations there or on the Messenger mobile app.”
Users without a Facebook account will have to rely on the Messenger mobile app to continue chatting. Those who backed up their chat history on Messenger can restore it on any platform using the PIN created during the backup setup. Meta allows users to reset their PIN if they forget it.
Meta made a similar move earlier when it shut down Messenger’s standalone desktop apps for Windows and Mac. The company had already been redirecting desktop app users to the Facebook website, signaling that the standalone platforms were on the way out.
Reverse engineer Alessandro Paluzzi first spotted the change, and Meta is now notifying users through a pop-up message on both the Messenger website and mobile app.
The update sparked frustration on social media, with many users voicing their dislike of having to rely on Facebook’s website, especially those who deactivated their Facebook accounts.
Meta’s decision to cut standalone Messenger platforms comes as part of a cost-reduction strategy, leaving the company with fewer platforms to maintain while streamlining its messaging services.
Messenger launched as “Facebook Chat” in 2008, before becoming a standalone app in 2011. Over the years, Meta pushed Messenger as a separate service, removing messaging from the main Facebook mobile app in 2014 to encourage adoption. The company partially reversed that move in 2023 by merging Messenger back into the Facebook app.
Meta has not yet responded to requests for comment.
