Facebook revealed during its F8 developer conference last year that it was planning to bring a new dedicated Messenger app to macOS and Windows in the fall of 2019. Although a tad late, Messenger for macOS appears to be just rolling out now to users in some territories including France, Australia, Mexico, and Poland (via 9to5Mac).
The app has been spotted on the Mac App Store in France, courtesy of MacGeneration. It"s not clear for now when the app will be available in the Mac App Store in the U.S. and other countries.
The app is built using Electron, a tool for developing apps for the desktop from a web app, instead of Catalyst. The benefit of this is that the app works on older macOS versions as well and not just Catalina. Messenger"s desktop version features similar capabilities as its mobile client such as voice and video chat support. There"s dark mode as well to reduce eye strain in low light settings. Messenger"s native desktop version also supports group chats and emoji reactions.
Messenger"s arrival on the Mac App Store comes two days after Facebook introduced its lighter Messenger app for iOS. This version was built using Project LightSpeed and Facebook claims the new app would launch in under two seconds, coming in at below 30MB in size.
Source: MacGeneration