Facebook deletes ‘other’ inbox for private messages from non-contacts

Social network Facebook is removing the ‘Other’ or ‘Other’ inboxes for private messages. Instead, users are notified that someone they are not friends with wants to send a message, after which they are given a chance to allow or not to do so.

Those message requests arrive in Facebook Messenger like regular messages, the social network reports. Contacts, people whose phone number the user has synced with Facebook or who a user has chatted with before, can send messages that arrive in the inbox, the rest the social network automatically converts into a ‘message request’.

This puts an end to the ‘Other’ inbox of messages from non-contacts. Many users probably see little of that ‘Other’ inbox, because it is not or only poorly accessible within the app and it does not stand out on the website. The feature has been around for years.

With the step, Facebook wants to let more people chat with each other via Messenger. Facebook continues to develop Messenger, despite the company buying WhatsApp messaging application some time ago.