How To Deactivate Facebook Messenger

You can deactivate, and even delete Facebook if you’re tired of the social network and it’s far from healthy impact on your mental health. Deactivating and deleting Facebook is pretty simple but the same can’e be said if you want to deactivate Facebook Messenger.

Facebook Messenger continues to work even if you have deactivated your Facebook account. This is, in part, because Facebook Messenger exists as a service and app outside of Facebook. In fact, you can use your phone number instead of your Facebook account to use Messenger.

Deactivate Facebook Messenger

If you use Facebook Messenger with your Facebook account, you must first deactivate your Facebook account before you can deactivate Facebook Messenger. If you want to get rid of Facebook Messenger without deactivating Facebook, your only option is to turn chat off. Additionally, you can only deactivate Facebook Messenger from one of its smartphone apps. The web interface doesn’t have a deactivate option.

Open Facebook Messenger on your iPhone or Android phone. Tap your profile picture at the top to go to your settings. Scroll down and tap Legal & Policies.

On the Legal & Policies screen, you will see a Deactivate Messenger option. Tap it and enter your password. Once you’re past the verification screen, tap the Deactivate button.

This will effectively deactivate Facebook Messenger. It will not, however, delete or hide any conversations you’ve had. Other people, with whom you have conversation threads, will still be able to read the chat history.

If you ever want to start using Facebook Messenger again, all you have to do is log back in, and you’re good to go. There doesn’t seem to be a way to delete your Facebook Messenger account other than just deleting the app from it. If your Facebook Messenger account is tied to your Facebook account, then deleting your Facebook account is what it takes to delete Facebook Messenger.

There doesn’t seem to be any way to dispose of your Facebook Messenger account such that all your conversation history goes with it. If you delete your Facebook account, it is possible that the chat thread will no longer show your name and profile picture but if you use a phone number for the messaging service, you might not have any way to remove all traces of your account.

If you’re trying to avoid someone on Facebook Messenger, you can try blocking them, or turning off your active status and read receipts.