Facebook Messenger is leaving the desktop – how to get it back!

I hate Meta. Just read the news, both about them and their founder, and you’ll see why. I don’t use Instagram anymore, my profile on Facebook is intentionally inaccurate and only live because I need it for messaging with people. And that’s where I’m stuck – if friends aren’t on Messenger they’re on WhatsApp. So I keep an account and just use the messaging apps.

Now, for reasons unknown, Meta have pulled their desktop apps, making you message from your mobile device or the web. Urgh.

The app has already gone for new downloads and the Windows app will stop working after December 14th. The Mac app soon after.

But you can get it back. Kind of.

As well as accessing messenger from within Facebook there’s also messenger.com. And it’s this latter we’re going to use.

Even if their desktop app wasn’t just a PWA, it acts like one. Most browsers have a way for you convert a website into a web app, and that’s exactly what I’ve done with messenger.com. It now runs like the old desktop app and, indeed, looks just like it.

How to create a desktop app

I’m not going to go into the full details here but most of the popular apps have some way of doing this. Here are the menu options (for Mac) for 3 of them…

Google Chrome: Settings -> Cast, save and share -> Install page as app…

Microsoft Edge: Settings -> More Tools -> Apps -> Install This Site as an App

Apple Safari: Share -> Add to Dock