Looking Back on 2022

This year, the Messenger team has been busier than ever. We’ve launched 50+ new features and made tons of improvements to make this our fastest version of Messenger yet. As we near the end of the year, I want to take a moment to highlight some of the biggest enhancements we’ve begun to roll out and everyone can expect to see in 2023.

Chat with your community

While our products have always helped you connect with your friends and family, we’re now helping to connect communities. This year, we’ve started adding features to help you connect with people around shared interests, so you can take your community with you anywhere you go. 

• New channel types: Unlock new ways to engage in your community with event integrations, broadcast chats and audio-first channels.
• Member suggested chats: Members can now suggest community chats for admins to approve, making it easier to get the conversation going without losing control.
• Direct invites: Bring the right people into chats and communities with direct invites and helpful preset categories.

• Inbox shortcuts: Never miss an update from your favorite community chats by adding shortcuts from your main inbox.
• Admod integrations: Streamline management workflows and collaborate with your team in a dedicated channel for admins and moderators.
• Community creation: Start your community directly from the Messenger app to connect with members in real-time over chat and audio.

Securely chat with end-to-end encryption

We started making upgrades to your security. From end-to-end encryption to ephemeral features like disappearing messages, we want your chats to be private and safe.

• Encrypted messaging on Messenger: We’ve been rolling out end-to-end encryption for 1:1 and group messages as well as voice and video calls, giving you more control over how private you want your calls and chats to be.
• Key comparison: Compare encryption keys with recipients to ensure your conversations stay secure between your two devices.
• Disappearing messages: We are gradually introducing Disappearing Messages, where you can set a timer to have everyone’s messages disappear at a time you choose after they’ve been seen.

• Secure storage: Protect and restore your encrypted message history on a new device, so you’re always in sync.
• Security alerts: Receive an alert when there is a new login on your account in the conversation.
• Optional encryption on Instagram: Start end-to-end encrypted chats on Instagram so you can have even more secure chats.

Stay safe while messaging

We want our messaging products to provide a secure and safe space for people to connect. This year we improved safety across private and public chats with stronger prevention measures, improved safety controls and moderation tools.

• Inform treatments: Know content is sensitive, disturbing or contains misinformation before viewing when you see verified labels on content shared from Facebook.
• Hidden words updates: Filter out spam and scams you see in your inbox with new hidden word terms.
• Admin assist: Get help with moderating your community chats with automated message removal.

Express yourself

We’re dedicated to giving you the most expressive experience possible. This year, we focused on bringing your thread to life with stickers and avatars. 

• Theme stickers: Personalize your thread by using custom stickers based on your theme.
• Avatar hot like: Quickly reply with your avatar, so you can express yourself with more than an emoji.
• New themes: Continue to make your chat feel like home with new custom themes like Christmas, Non-Binary and Taylor Swift.

Let us work for you

We’re here to make your life easier. With these new tools, we are ready to help you make the most of your experience.

• Bump a message: Don’t worry about annoying your friend to respond. Bump the message, and we’ll remind them to reply
• Pinned messages: Keep important messages top of mind, so they never get buried in a thread.
• Shortcuts: Supercharge your messaging efficiency with shortcuts like /silent and /everyone.

From all of us at Messenger, happy new year!

Disclaimer: Feature release timing and availability may vary based on location.