Messenger’s independent website ends after years, as Meta moves messaging elsewhere

Meta is shutting down Messenger’s standalone website, ending messenger.com as a separate place to chat on the web. The change was detailed by Engadget, which reported the site is scheduled to go dark in April.

For web users, Meta says conversations will continue through Facebook’s messaging page instead. Once messenger.com is no longer available, visitors will be redirected to facebook.com/messages to keep using Messenger in a browser.

The Messenger mobile app will remain available, but the shift removes a dedicated web-only interface some people relied on for a cleaner, messaging-first experience. The move also continues a broader trend of consolidating Messenger access into Facebook’s main web destination.

The standalone option is going away for web users

After the shutdown, Meta says web-based messaging will live at facebook.com/messages rather than messenger.com. Users should still be able to access the same chats and contacts, but the experience will be housed within the Facebook site instead of a separate Messenger address.

Meta also outlined how chat history can be restored after switching to the app. The process uses a PIN tied to Messenger backups, and users who do not remember the PIN can reset it, amid continued scrutiny around platform access controls like the Starlink access decision.

The decision has frustrated some users who preferred keeping Messenger separate from the main Facebook experience. That includes people who deactivated their Facebook accounts but continued to use Messenger as their primary messaging tool, since the standalone website offered a more focused path to conversations.

Engadget noted the change follows earlier steps that reduced Messenger’s standalone footprint on desktop. In October, Meta shut down Messenger’s standalone desktop applications and directed users back to Facebook for messaging rather than emphasizing messenger.com as a long-term alternative, as policymakers were also tracking issues like the Gates AI summit withdrawal.

Messenger’s history has repeatedly shifted between being an integrated Facebook feature and a separate product. It began as Facebook Chat in 2008, then became a standalone app in 2011 as the company pushed it more aggressively as its own service.

That separation became more pronounced in 2014, when Facebook removed messaging from the main Facebook app and pointed users toward the dedicated Messenger app. In 2023, Meta began reintegrating Messenger back into the main Facebook app, moving messaging closer to Facebook again.

With messenger.com set to shut down in April, Meta’s current approach appears to be more centralized. Messenger will still exist as a service, but the dedicated standalone website for web chat will no longer be part of the company’s messaging setup.