Social
Messenger
Meta's standalone chat app for Facebook contacts, with calls, HD photos, shared albums and Meta AI.
Get the app
Opens the official store page
- Developer
- Meta Platforms, Inc.
- Score
- 4.7
- Downloads
- 1M+ ratings
- Age
- Rated 12+
- Version
- 585.0.0
- Price
- Free
Screenshots
About this app
Meta's standalone chat app lets Facebook users message and call each other without exchanging phone numbers. It's the general-purpose messenger for anyone whose friends and family are already on Facebook, and it has grown a long list of extras beyond text. Photos send in high definition, and group chats can build shared albums of photos and videos from a trip or a birthday. Files up to 100MB, including Word, PDF and Excel documents, go straight into a chat. Messages can be edited for 15 minutes after sending or unsent, and end-to-end encrypted chats can be set to disappear after reading. New contacts are added by scanning a QR code. Stories and Notes vanish after 24 hours, broadcast channels follow creators, and chat themes, stickers, GIFs and reactions handle decoration. Meta AI, which answers questions and generates or edits images inside chats, is only available in certain countries and languages.
Messenger: the full guide
What the app is
If your friends are on Facebook, this is the chat app you already have an account for. Meta's standalone messenger lets people on Facebook message and call one another without swapping numbers, and it has piled up extras well beyond text.
Photos send in HD and groups can build shared albums from a trip. Word, PDF and Excel files up to 100MB go directly into a conversation. Sent messages can be edited within 15 minutes or unsent, encrypted chats can be made to vanish once read, and new contacts are added via QR code. Stories vanish after a day, and Meta AI answers questions in some countries.
How it works day to day
A day runs through group chats: the family group where someone's uploaded a dozen HD photos to the shared album, the friends group planning a weekend, a one-to-one thread where you fixed a typo in a message two minutes after sending. A PDF from work gets forwarded without leaving the app. A new acquaintance scans your QR code at a party instead of asking for your number. Stories get a glance. In the countries where it's available, Meta AI answers a quick question in the middle of a chat. It's constant, low-effort contact with people you already know.
Why people look for it
The honest answer is network effect: people install Messenger because the people they want to reach are on Facebook. Beyond that, the no-phone-number model suits acquaintances and marketplace contacts, the HD photo and shared album features appeal to families, and 100MB file sharing is handy for people who treat it as a work channel.
Look and feel
A chat list, a conversation with reactions and stickers, a group album and a call screen are what the five screenshots most likely contain. Messenger's layout is the template many other chat apps copy: bubbles, a bottom tab bar, a composer with media buttons. Chat themes let users recolour conversations, so the look is partly up to you.
Updates and upkeep
Version 585.0.0 is the highest number in this batch by a distance and points to a build-per-release scheme at a company shipping constantly, though no dates are in our data. More than a million ratings averaging 4.7 is a large, broadly positive sample for an app people use daily and complain about freely. Meta Platforms, Inc. publishes it; App Store only here.
