Apps for Mac - Free Mac Appstore. 3,369 likes 1 talking about this. Welcome to the world of free mac os app. Apr 02, 2020 Facebook today launched a standalone Messenger app for macOS and Windows platforms, allowing users to video and text chat with friends and family from their desktop computer. Along with all of the. Apr 05, 2017 Version 0.1.6.2016-02-09T17:42:20Z published 2/9/2016, 9:43:00 AM from 1a2c4f Download. Fixes a bug where desktop notifications would get disabled between app launches on OS X 10.11.3. Fixes switching between conversations with ⌘19. Create an account or log into Facebook. Connect with friends, family and other people you know. Share photos and videos, send messages and get updates.
Facebook is launching Messenger apps for Windows and MacOS globally from today, nearly a year after the social networking giant first announced plans to bring dedicated apps to the desktop.
At its annual F8 developer conference in San Jose, California last April, Facebook detailed a number of major updates it was working on for Messenger, including a new lightweight app for iOS dubbed “project lightspeed” that finally launched to the public last month. Facebook also teased new native desktop apps, and over the past month Messenger for Mac has been spotted in the wild in a few markets around the world. But today the worldwide rollout kicks into high gear.
A Facebook Messenger app has been available for Windows users for a while, though it has largely been neglected, and a web version has been around for several years. But the new incarnation has been rebuilt from the ground up.
With the new Messenger desktop app, users can make video calls on much larger screens, which will certainly improve one-to-one communications. However, the bigger benefit will likely be for group video calls, as multiple friends can look cluttered on a smaller smartphone screen.
Above: Messenger Desktop Group Video Call
Messenger for desktop is also designed for different scenarios — someone is more likely to be doing multiple things while at their PC, and the app allows users to push the window to the side to check other tabs or windows temporarily while keeping their conversation going.
The app isn’t purely about video chats, of course. Those who use it as their primary messaging service can see notifications for new messages, with everything synchronized across all devices they use Messenger on.
In the immediate aftermath of the COVID-19 outbreak, Facebook reported a 70% surge in people participating in Messenger group video calls, while the amount of time spent on those group video calls doubled — and these numbers have been rising sharply.
“Now more than ever, people are using technology to stay in touch with the people they care about, even when physically apart,” wrote Messenger VP Stan Chudnovsky in a blog post. “Over the past month, we saw more than a 100% increase in people using their desktop browser for audio and video calling on Messenger.”
There’s a big misconception that if you want to useFacebook Messenger, you must be signed into Facebook itself and access the chatinterface from the Facebook website or the mobile version. Nothing could befurther from the truth. In fact you don’t even need a Facebook account anymoreto use Messenger.
Even if you do have a Facebook account, it isperfectly possible to use Messenger without going anywhere near facebook.com oreven having the Facebook smartphone app installed. I should know. I’ve hadFacebook uninstalled from my iPhone for months but I still use Messenger.
Use The Messenger Smartphone App
If you’re a heavy smartphone user, it makes sense in this case to just use the Messenger app for your phone. It is a very sleek, well-built app and I have had no issues with it whatsoever. It even has games on it where you can play basketball with a phone contact! The iPhone version is here and the Android version is here.
I particularly like “Dark Mode” as well as theself-destructing messages (which I will be discussing in another article soon).
Facebook Messenger Mac Os Apps
Use The Standalone Messenger Website
You may or may not know that Messenger actually has its own standalone website at messenger.com, made by Facebook themselves. Here you can log into your Messenger account and use it without going anywhere near your Facebook timeline or any other time-sucking distractions.
Being browser-based, you can set notifications in yourbrowser for new messages and generally it works and looks exactly the same wayas the smartphone app. The only difference is that there doesn’t seem to be anydark mode, self-destructing messages, and a few other bells and whistlesnormally offered on Messenger such as Facebook Stories.
However if all that doesn’t bother you, messenger.comis an ideal solution if you want to monitor your messages without constantlygetting drawn into the Facebook timeline black hole.
Mac Users Can Use Messenger For Mac
Mac users have a really nice software possibility with a really original name – “Messenger for Mac”. This is NOT made by Facebook, as made clear by the website which states that it is a “free and open-source project made by fans of Messenger”. But I have used this on my Mac for a very long time and it works wonderfully.
Again there doesn’t seem to be any Dark Mode or otherfeatures normally offered by Facebook Messenger. This is just a stripped downbare-bones version of Messenger you can run on your Mac and have pinned to yourDock. But not everybody wants the latest shiny object.
Use An All-In-One Solution
There used to be a time when you had individual chatclients such as MSN Messenger, Yahoo Messenger, ICQ, Google Talk…..then thetrend moved to combining those services into one platform, so we had Trillian,Pidgin, Adium, and so on.
Even though a lot of these individual chat services have now shut down, we still have things like Messenger, Slack, Skype, Signal, Telegram, and so on. So the “next generation” of one-stop chat platforms might be what you need. Two which I have used and recommend are Franz and Rambox.
Facebook Messenger App For Mac Os X
The downsides are that they only give you yourmessages, nothing else (obviously you can reply too, but what I mean is don’texpect any cute stickers or anything).
Second, there is no mobile phone version so these arepurely desktop only. But there are versions for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and itis enormously helpful to have everything in the same place if all you need areyour messages.