Facebook to release the native Messenger Desktop app for Mac later this year

Solid evidence surfaced today regarding the native Facebook Messenger app that will be hitting the Mac platform later this year, with leaked images and videos depicting a user interface that looks like a cross between the Skype app and Apple’s Messages software.

As unearthed by French blog iGeneration.fr (Google Translate) from the leaked official announcement earlier this morning, the desktop app seems to offer much of the same features as its mobile counterpart, including group video calling.

Say hello to Messenger Desktop

Here’s an excerpt from the blog post.

We’re also launching a desktop app for Messenger that’s available for both Windows and macOS. People want to seamlessly message from any device and sometimes they just want a little more space to share and connect with the people they care about most.

You can download Messenger Desktop—and enjoy the same features as the app on your phone—like group video calls, collaborate on projects or multitask while chatting in Messenger. We are testing this now and will roll it out globally later this year.

The news has arrived ahead of Facebook’s annual F8 conference for developers kicking off at 10am Pacific Time that will update us on the company’s plans for the near future.

The future is private, Zuck says

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced a pivot to privacy that will result in the messaging features of Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram being integrated into a single app with end to end encryption and an iMessage-like layer for SMS.

Don’t expect the chats to integrate this year.

According to Facebook, 2019 will be a transitional period for the unified messaging effort because integrating WhatsApp’s and Instagram’s messaging features won’t be finalized before 2020 at the earliest. The social networking giant is also expected to reintegrate Messenger functionality into the main app.

Are you looking forward to Messenger Desktop?

Let us know by leaving a comment below.