12 things you probably didn't know your Facebook Messenger could do

After WhatsApp messenger, Facebook’s Messenger app is one of the most popular online texting app. Also, the reason that Facebook coerces its users to download the Messenger app to chat with their Facebook friends, adds to its popularity.

Earlier, a simple chatting space, in last couple of months, the Facebook Messenger app has come to evolve into a much superior application. Here are some features of the online messenger we surmise you may not know about:

Free voice calls

Internet calling is one of the hottest trends these days, therefore following swing Facebook also introduced the internet calling service in the Messenger app. However, many users missed out on the update.

Animate your conversation

GIFs are one other hot trend of the year and Facebook made a smart move to integrate them in its Messenger as well. The more option above the keypad leads you to other apps that let you use the most trending GIFs and memes.

Share location

Similar to WhatsApp, now the Messenger also allows users to share their current location. Right on top of the keypad, where all the image sharing and emoticon icons sit, right next to the ‘thumbs up’ is a more option indicated by three dots. Tapping that brings you the option t share voice note or your location.

Communicate with online seller

In an interesting upgrade, Facebook partnered with various online retailers, which allows Facebook users interact with online sellers on the Messenger.

Facebook Messenger on desktop

If you didn’t know already, WhatsApp is not the only chat messenger that you can also use on the desktop. You can easily log in to the web version of the Messenger and switch to its desktop version for convenience.

Mute a conversation

As much as we love our friends, sometimes it’s just difficult to get them to stop talking. But you don’t need to shut them up, because the Messenger lets you mute conversations. Unlike WhatsApp, that lets you mute a conversation for either 8 hours, 1 week or a year, the Messenger gives you more flexible options with the possibility to tongue-tie the notifications for 15 minutes, 1 hour, 8 hours, 1 day or until you turn it back on.

Disable message preview

Other than muting a conversation, the Facebook Messenger also allows a user to enable/disable message previews by simply going to the Messenger setting > Notifications and toggle off the Show Previews option.

Block the unwanted people

This may not be a new feature, but a lot of users aren’t aware of it. Since the Facebook chat messenger is linked with your profile, instead of going to the ‘others’ folder sometimes you receive the messages on your Messenger, and you know it well how Facebook is hoarded with creeps forcing conversation with random people. Therefore, you must know that you do not need to ignore them when you can take an action against them. Facebook allows you to block, mark as spam or report abuse against anyone inappropriate or unwanted on your Messenger or profile.

Mark as unread

As the picture above shows, you can also mark conversations unread if you see a message and want to get back to it later. 

Group chats

You can easily create groups on messengers now, and pin/unpin the groups for easy access. While chatting with an individual on the Messenger, you can just add another person in the conversation, by tapping on the person’s name on the top of the screen and choosing ‘Create group’ from the given options.

View shared media

Much like WhatsApp, the Facebook Messenger also lets you view the media shared with a particular person, eliminating the inconvenience of going through all pictures in the phone’s photo album.

Facebook’s personal assistant

You probably didn’t know but Facebook is taking its game pretty seriously. Taking from the likes of Siri, Cortana and Google Now, Facebook too is jumping the bandwagon of virtual assistants, and it will be called ‘M’.

Read more about Facebook M here.