Facebook has announced in a…well…Facebook post, they have begun to roll out multiple account support for their popular messaging app Messenger to Android users all over the world. This comes just a couple of weeks after the company rolled out an update of their new material design UI which will soon be implemented into Messenger.
All over the world, hundreds of millions of people share their phones and tablets with members of their family and friends. At Messenger, we want to make communication simpler, more seamless and secure, so we are happy that we have now launched a feature on Android that enables multiple people to log in and use Messenger from a single, shared device.
Facebook is really targeting this feature to users who share their devices (obviously) with features such as always-on password protection for your account when a second account is active.
The beauty of this new feature is that your messages stay completely private. Anyone else who shares the device will just see the number of notifications of messages that you have, but they will never be able to see the content of your messages.
Here’s a full rundown of exactly how the new feature works:
- In the Messenger for Android settings, look for a section called ‘Accounts’.
- Add the accounts related to each person – signing up with Messenger takes only a few steps, and you don’t need to be on Facebook.
- The first time someone switches from another account on a phone to their account, we will require a password. After this, the user can choose whether to always require a password.
- In just three steps, you can move between accounts, and your private messages will always remain just that – private. It’s as simple as that.
- Of course if you want to stop sharing a phone, it’s simple to remove your account from that particular device.
Right now, multiple account support is only on Android, but expect iOS support within the next few days if history Facebook updates are of any indication.
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