Meta is officially pulling the plug on its standalone Messenger desktop apps for Mac and Windows.
The company confirmed that both versions will stop working on December 15, redirecting users to Facebook.com instead.
“If you’re using the Messenger desktop apps, you’ll get an in-app notification once the deprecation process begins,” a Messenger help page explains. “You will have 60 days to use the Mac Messenger app before it is fully deprecated. Once the 60 days are over, you’ll be blocked from using the Mac Messenger app. We encourage you to delete the app since it will no longer be usable.”
After December 15, users won’t be able to log into the apps at all and will be redirected to Facebook’s website to access their messages. Meta recommends turning on Secure Storage and setting up a PIN before switching over, so chat history remains accessible across devices.
While Windows users can still use the Facebook desktop app, Mac users will now have to rely entirely on the web version of Messenger.
The decision isn’t entirely surprising, Meta replaced the native desktop app with a Progressive Web App (PWA) in September 2024. Still, shutting down the apps altogether will likely frustrate power users who preferred the cleaner, distraction-free desktop experience.