Messenger X Ondrej Lasak

Use this command to install Messenger X:

winget install --id=jimicze.MessengerX -e

Messenger X is a lightweight, cross-platform desktop client for Facebook Messenger built with Tauri v2 and Rust. It provides native desktop notifications, system tray integration, offline mode with cached snapshots, auto-updates, and a clean WebView-powered interface — filling the gap left by Facebook discontinuing the official Messenger desktop app.

Messenger X

A lightweight, cross-platform desktop client for Facebook Messenger

Downloads • Features • Build from Source • Architecture • Contributing

> Why? — Facebook discontinued the official Messenger desktop app. Browser tabs lack native OS integration. Messenger X fills the gap — native notifications, dock badges, persistent sessions, and offline support in a ~8 MB binary (vs ~120 MB Electron alternatives).

📥 Downloads

Package managers

# macOS — Homebrew (custom tap, not in official homebrew/cask)
brew tap jimicze/tap
brew install --cask messenger-x

# Windows — winget
winget install jimicze.MessengerX

Direct installers

Pick the right installer for your platform:

Platform
Architecture
Format
Download


🍎 <strong>macOS</strong>
Apple Silicon (M1+)
.dmg
<a href="https://github.com/jimicze/fb-messanger-crossplatform/releases/latest"><strong>Latest Release →</strong></a>


🍎 <strong>macOS</strong>
Intel x86_64
.dmg


🪟 <strong>Windows</strong>
x64
.exe (NSIS installer)
<a href="https://github.com/jimicze/fb-messanger-crossplatform/releases/latest"><strong>Latest Release →</strong></a>


🪟 <strong>Windows</strong>
ARM64
.exe (NSIS installer)


🐧 <strong>Linux</strong>
x64
.deb / .rpm / .AppImage
<a href="https://github.com/jimicze/fb-messanger-crossplatform/releases/latest"><strong>Latest Release →</strong></a>


🐧 <strong>Linux</strong>
ARM64
.deb / .rpm / .AppImage

🐧 Which Linux package should I use?

Distro	Recommended format
Debian / Ubuntu / Linux Mint / Pop!_OS	`.deb`
Fedora / RHEL / openSUSE	`.rpm`
Arch Linux / Manjaro / NixOS / any other	`.AppImage`

✨ Features

🌐 Native WebView Client — Loads messenger.com in a system WebView — no bundled browser engine. Uses your OS's native web renderer for minimal resource usage.
🔔 Native Notifications — Web notifications are intercepted and forwarded to your OS notification system. Works with notification centers on all platforms.
📞 Voice & Video Calls — Full voice and video call support for direct messages, including end-to-end encrypted (e2ee) calls. Calls open in a native app window powered by WebRTC. Works on macOS, Windows, and Linux.
🔢 Unread Badge — Parses the unread count from the page title and displays it on your dock/taskbar icon and system tray tooltip.
🔐 Persistent Sessions — Your login session persists across app restarts. Toggle "Stay logged in" in Settings, or log out and wipe all data with one click.
📴 Offline Mode — Automatic HTML snapshots every 60 seconds. When you go offline, the app shows cached content with a non-intrusive banner — no blank screens.
🔄 Auto-Updates — Built-in update checker in Settings. One-click download, install, and restart — no manual re-downloading needed.
🌍 Localization — Automatically detects your system language. Currently supports English and Czech, with easy extensibility for more languages.
🔍 Zoom Controls — Zoom from 50% to 300%. Zoom level persists across sessions.
🪟 Window Management — Window size and position are saved and restored. Default: 1200×800, minimum: 400×300.
🔗 Smart Link Handling — Facebook/Messenger URLs stay in-app. External links open in your default system browser automatically.

Platform notes — notifications & startup

Platform	Notification system	Requirements / notes
macOS	`UNUserNotificationCenter`	Grant permission in System Settings → Notifications → Messenger X. Notification sound plays on delivery.
Windows	WinRT toast	Grant permission in Settings → System → Notifications. Focus Assist / Do Not Disturb suppresses toasts while active.
Linux (GNOME)	`libnotify` (`notify-send`) with plugin fallback	Install `libnotify-bin` for best results. MPRIS media widget is suppressed automatically.
Linux (KDE / XFCE / other)	Native notification plugin	Works out of the box on most desktop environments.

Windows startup note: Messenger X reads your Windows proxy settings from the registry and passes the correct flag to WebView2, so the 20–30 second blank-window delay that occurred on networks without a proxy server is fully eliminated as of v1.3.38.

🏗️ Architecture

┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│                  Messenger X                     │
├──────────────────────┬──────────────────────────┤
│   Frontend (TS)      │   Backend (Rust)          │
│                      │                           │
│   messenger.com      │   Tauri v2 Framework      │
│   loaded in WebView  │   ├─ Plugin: Notification │
│                      │   ├─ Plugin: Opener        │
│   JS Injection:      │   ├─ Plugin: Window-State  │
│   ├─ Notifications   │   ├─ Plugin: Updater       │
│   ├─ Unread Observer │   ├─ Plugin: Autostart     │
│   ├─ Offline Banner  │   │                       │
│   └─ Zoom Control    │   Services:               │
│                      │   ├─ auth.rs    (session) │
│   All settings live  │   ├─ cache.rs   (offline) │
│   in the native      │   ├─ locale.rs  (i18n)    │
│   tray context menu  │   ├─ network.rs (monitor) │
│                      │   └─ notification.rs      │
│        invoke()      │   10 IPC Commands          │
│   ─────────────────► │   ├─ send_notification    │
│                      │   ├─ update_unread_count  │
│   ◄───────────────── │   ├─ get/save_settings    │
│        eval()        │   ├─ save/load_snapshot   │
│                      │   ├─ clear_all_data       │
│                      │   ├─ open_external        │
│                      │   ├─ set/get_zoom         │
│                      │   └─ check/install_update │
├──────────────────────┴──────────────────────────┤
│             System WebView                       │
│   macOS: WebKit · Windows: WebView2              │
│   Linux: WebKitGTK                               │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘

Key design decisions:

No framework — vanilla TypeScript, zero frontend dependencies
System WebView — no bundled Chromium, keeps the binary at ~8 MB
JS injection from Rust — all scripts are injected at document-start via initialization_script(), not loaded from files
Programmatic window creation — main window is built in Rust setup(), not tauri.conf.json, to enable custom navigation hooks and script injection

⚙️ Build from Source

Prerequisites

Tool	Version	Purpose
Node.js	18+	Frontend tooling
Rust	stable (1.70+)	Backend compilation
Tauri CLI	2.x	Build orchestration

🐧 Linux: Additional system dependencies

sudo apt-get install -y \
  libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev \
  libappindicator3-dev \
  librsvg2-dev \
  patchelf \
  libgtk-3-dev \
  libglib2.0-dev \
  libssl-dev \
  libdbus-1-dev

Build

# Clone
git clone https://github.com/jimicze/fb-messanger-crossplatform.git
cd fb-messanger-crossplatform

# Install dependencies
npm install

# Development (hot-reload)
npm run tauri dev

# Release build
npm run tauri build

# Debug build
npm run tauri build -- --debug

Verify

# Type-check frontend
npx tsc --noEmit

# Lint Rust
cargo clippy          # from src-tauri/

# Run Rust tests
cargo test            # from src-tauri/

📁 Project Structure

fb-messanger-crossplatform/
├── src/                          # TypeScript frontend
│   ├── index.html                #   Loading splash screen
│   └── scripts/                  #   JS injection stubs (actual JS in lib.rs)
│       ├── main.ts
│       ├── bridge.ts
│       ├── notifications.ts
│       ├── unread.ts
│       └── offline.ts
├── src-tauri/                    # Rust backend
│   ├── Cargo.toml
│   ├── tauri.conf.json
│   ├── capabilities/             #   Tauri v2 permission model
│   ├── icons/                    #   App icons (all platforms)
│   └── src/
│       ├── main.rs               #   Entry point
│       ├── lib.rs                #   App setup, JS injection, navigation
│       ├── commands.rs           #   10 IPC command handlers
│       └── services/
│           ├── auth.rs           #   Session &amp; settings persistence
│           ├── cache.rs          #   HTML snapshot management
│           ├── locale.rs         #   i18n (en, cs)
│           ├── network.rs        #   Network monitoring
│           └── notification.rs   #   Native notification dispatch
└── .github/workflows/
    └── release.yml               # Cross-platform CI/CD

🚀 Release Process

Releases are automated via GitHub Actions. To create a new release:

# Tag and push
git tag v1.0.0
git push origin v1.0.0

This triggers builds for 6 parallel jobs (macOS arm64 + x64, Windows x64 + arm64, Linux x64 + arm64), signs update artifacts, publishes latest.json for auto-updates, bumps the Homebrew tap, and submits a winget PR — all automatically.

🛡️ Security & Privacy

No data collection — Messenger X doesn't phone home or collect any telemetry
No API reverse-engineering — simply wraps the official messenger.com web interface
Local persistence only — sessions, settings, and cached snapshots are stored in your OS app data directory
Navigation allowlist — only messenger.com, facebook.com, fbcdn.net, and fbsbx.com are loaded in-app; everything else opens in your system browser
Hardened runtime (macOS) enabled for Gatekeeper compatibility
Windows code signing — provided by SignPath Foundation (free code signing for open-source projects)

🗺️ Roadmap

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Please:

Fork the repository
Create a feature branch (git checkout -b feature/amazing-feature)
Ensure cargo clippy and npx tsc --noEmit pass
Commit your changes
Open a Pull Request

📄 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License — see the LICENSE file for details.

Built with ❤️ using Tauri v2 · Rust · TypeScript