@everyone – Introducing Shortcuts on Messenger

We’re excited today to introduce shortcuts on Messenger, a new command system to help supercharge your messaging efficiency and add a little extra fun to your experience. Whether you want to notify everyone in a chat of an important announcement, pay a friend back for lunch or express your frustration with a timely “(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻”, Messenger’s new shortcuts will get you there in the shortest number of keystrokes. 

Decide how and when you want to show up

You likely know that typing “@” and a person’s name will tag that specific person in the chat. But what about when you want to grab everyone’s attention? Or maybe you just want to share a thought, but don’t need an immediate response?

Enter the @everyone and /silent shortcuts, available today to people using Messenger on iOS and Android. When you start a message with @everyone, all participants in the chat will be notified. @everyone is perfect for group reminders, impromptu get-togethers or when you need to gather the braintrust to crowdsource an answer to a time-sensitive question. This way, your message gets maximum exposure, and nobody misses out.

Conversely, have you ever been woken up at 4 a.m. by a message from friends who “forgot” you’re in a different time zone 😴? When you use /silent (also available on Instagram as “@silent”), the members of your chat will not receive a notification of your message at all. Sending a message with /silent removes the anxiety of interrupting someone with a non-urgent pop-up notification or disturbing them during their off hours. Now, you can share those late-night epiphanies in the moment without disturbing the peace, and your friends can read your message at their leisure.

Supercharge your Messenger experience

Why drag something out when you could get it done in one fell swoop? In the coming weeks, we’re introducing several new shortcuts that will help you up your efficiency in Messenger for both practical and entertainment purposes.

/Pay (coming soon to iOS and Android for Messenger fans in the US): Our new /pay shortcut makes it even easier to send and receive money right in your one-on-one Messenger chats. Simply type /pay to send or request money securely  without fees – perfect for quickly paying a friend for dinner or getting paid back for a ride.

/gif (coming soon on iOS): GIFs help us express ourselves, conveying a sense of identity through pop culture references, which in turn help form our larger digital culture. To easily find and send that perfect GIF, use the /gif shortcut – simply type /gif and your chosen topic to see your gif options appear. 

/shrug & /tableflip (coming soon to iOS): Sometimes even a gif can’t compare to the emotions conveyed by the old-school text-based tableflip “(╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻” and shrug “¯\_(ツ)_/¯” emoticons. Instead of struggling to type each emoticon (or having to find it online to copy and paste), simply type in /shrug or /tableflip to add your chosen emoticons to your message. 

These are just the first of many shortcuts you can use in Messenger, so stay tuned for more coming later this year! 

(Can’t wait? Patience is a virtue ¯\_(ツ)_/¯)