Way back in 2014, Facebook decided to remove Messenger from its main app, requiring users to download the dedicated Facebook Messenger app if they wanted to keep chatting with that service. Fast-forward five years and the company may be planning to reverse that decision.
A new Chats section has been discovered inside the main Facebook app. Researcher Jane Manchun Wong discovered Messenger support inside the Facebook app, and when tapping the Messenger icon, she was brought to a Chats feature rather than kicked to the dedicated Messenger app.
While Messenger support is included in this main Facebook app, its feature set isn't exactly the same as the full Messenger app. This new Chats section only contains basic Messenger functionality, says Wong, so doing things like giving message reactions, make calls, and sending photos require you to use the dedicated Messenger app.
When Facebook pulled Messenger functionality from its main app, lots of folks were frustrated because Facebook took a perfectly good feature away to try and force users to install another app. Reintegrating Messenger in Facebook could make some of those people happy and could also convince some people who previously deleted the Facebook app to install it again, which would make Facebook happy.