After Nine Years, Messenger Is Coming Back To The Facebook Mobile App

Meta removed Messenger from the Facebook mobile app so long ago that Windows Phone was still a thing at the time. The company is ready to reunite them almost nine years later. “We are testing the ability for people to access their Messenger inbox within the Facebook app, and you will see us expand this testing soon,” Facebook CEO Tom Alison wrote. “Ultimately, we want it to be simple and convenient for people to connect and share, whether through the Messenger app or directly within Facebook.”

When Meta pulled Messenger from the Facebook app in 2014, the company stated, “our goal is to focus development efforts on making Messenger the best mobile messaging experience possible and avoid the confusion of having separate Facebook mobile messaging experiences.” It’s unclear whether Meta intends to bring messaging back to Facebook’s mobile browser. In 2016, it began directing mobile site visitors to the Messenger app. In any event, having one fewer app to manage on your phone is likely a good thing. You may also be able to message Instagram people via the Facebook app.

Meta made the revelation in an oddly phrased blog post regarding Facebook’s 2023 target areas. The post aims to reassure readers that “Facebook is not dead nor dying,” despite the fact that it already has more than 2 billion members.

Meta is seeking to push Facebook away from an app where you keep up with friends and family and towards more of an entertainment and discovery platform in order to compete with TikTok. Its goal is to “make Facebook the best place for social discovery and sharing,” as Alison stated in her blog post.

Meta is bringing messaging back to the Facebook app in order to “make it easier for people to share what they discover on Facebook via messaging, when, where and how it suits their needs, without needing to switch to another app,” Alison wrote. TikTok allows users to share films they come across with their friends via built-in instant chat. Thus, on the one hand, Meta is reversing direction and returning to an earlier way of doing things, while on the other, it is aping a rival.