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