Meta shuts down Messenger desktop app after 5‑year run

Meta has turned off the Messenger desktop app for both Windows and macOS as of December 15, 2025. Users who open the old app now land on a redirect screen. Accounts tied to Facebook go to Facebook.com for messages. Accounts using Messenger without Facebook are routed to Messenger.com.

The retirements follow warnings in‑app. When the deprecation process began, users received alerts indicating they’d have roughly 60 days before the desktop clients stopped working. The apps have already been removed from the Mac App Store and no longer support new installs.

Mobile Messenger, on iOS and Android is unaffected. Those versions continue to work as before.

What users need to do

The most immediate concern for people using the desktop app is preserving their chat history. Some encrypted conversations stored locally on the desktop client may not carry over automatically. Meta is urging users to enable Secure Storage and set a PIN before the switch.

That setup happens inside the Messenger app:

• Open settings.
• Go to Privacy & Safety.
• Select End‑to‑End Encrypted Chats.
• Turn on Secure Storage.
• Once enabled, chat history should be available across platforms, including the web version.

A full shift to browser and mobile-based messaging

The end of the desktop client completes a long trend by Meta away from standalone messaging apps on computers. Messenger first became a separate application from Facebook’s main product in 2014. For more than a decade, users could install Messenger on phones, tablets, and desktops.

But on desktop, usage never matched mobile. Technical changes over recent years—including reliance on web‑based frameworks—suggested the standalone experience was losing priority. With the official shutdown now in effect, browsers are the primary way to access messages outside of mobile.

Some users online have expressed frustration, especially those who preferred the standalone app for group chats and direct messaging apart from Facebook’s main interface. For others who deactivated Facebook but kept Messenger, the desktop shutdown removes a familiar way to stay connected.

What’s left

Messenger itself isn’t going away. The messaging service remains active on phones and in web browsers. Only the native desktop programs have been retired.

As of now, Meta has not provided a detailed rationale beyond its help‑page notices. For desktop users, the task is straightforward: follow the in‑app alerts, back up encrypted chats if needed, and use the browser version for messaging going forward.

For now, Meta’s focus appears to be on mobile and web messaging, not native desktop software. 

*This is a developing story