Facebook Messenger is a popular means of communicating, but the Mac doesn’t have a dedicated Facebook messaging app like the iPhone or Android does… or does it!?! Indeed, you can use Facebook Messenger to message friends from OS X, and in moments you can set up the Mac Messages app to function as a Facebook Messenger client in OS X.
Using Facebook Messenger from the Mac is really quite simple, but it’s entirely separate from configuring Facebook sharing from the Mac, so if you have done one but not the other, you’d need to complete both to have the full Facebook functions of sharing, posting, and messaging available to you in OS X.
How to Add Facebook Messenger to Messages in OS X
This basically turns your Messages app into a full fledged Mac Facebook Messenger client, you’ll be set up in just a few seconds with these instructions:
- Open the Messages app on the Mac if you haven’t done so yet
- Pull down the “Messages” menu and choose “Add Account…”
- From the message account screen, choose “Other messages account…” and click on “Continue”
- Pull down the menu next to “Account Type” and select ‘Jabber’ from the list
- In “Account Name” enter your Facebook account user name as follows: YourUserName@chat.facebook.com (a Facebook username is whatever your Facebook profile URL is, for example: ‘www.facebook.com/your_name_here’ the username would be “your_name_here” and the account name would then be your_name_here@chat.facebook.com)
- Enter your Facebook account password in the password field, this is the same one you use to login to Facebook from the web or the apps
- Ignore all other settings and choose “Create” – this will setup Facebook messaging client and in a moment you’ll see your Facebook Friends list populate as a buddy list, complete with friend names and friend profile pictures
- Message anyone in the list as usual, the conversations are going through Facebook Messenger
If you’re on a Mac, the ability to have Facebook Messenger conversations right in the Messages app of OS X is really quite nice, the conversations will appear alongside other text messages and iMessages, Google Chat, Yahoo Messenger, or AOL / AIM communications.
Once you have Facebook Messenger added to Messages, you will be automatically logged into Facebook Messenger when the Messages app opens. To log out of Facebook Messenger in Messages, simply pull down the “Messages” menu item and choose “Log out of chat.facebook.com” – similarly, you can log in that way as well.
You can access the Facebook Friends buddy list at any time from the “Windows” menu item in Messages app, where you can also set your status to be online or offline, or away.
This certainly beats having a web browser window open to Facebook.com on a Mac, and if you have set up Facebook posts and sharing in OS X you now have much of the Facebook functionality right in OS X without having to go to the website to talk to friends, share stuff, or post status updates.
What if you don’t have Messages for OS X? All modern Macs should, but if you’re using an older version of Mac system software that has the iChat app instead, don’t worry, you can also use Facebook chat in iChat too. The configuration and setup process is a little bit different, but the protocol is the same as is the ability to have a full conversation with your Facebook buddies. So, whatever your version of OS X on whatever your Mac, you’ll be Facebooking. Good for you. And no, if Facebook has been blocked on the network or hosts file, this will not bypass it.
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