How to Disable Chat Heads in Facebook Messenger (Because It’s Evil)
Chat heads are one of those things that I can only assume Facebook created to make sure they could sufficiently annoy you when not using the app to go back into it. There is never a time that while I’m using my phone I need a notification and a floating head of my friend messaging me over what I was originally trying to do. AMIRITE?
It’s pretty easy to figure out why Facebook added this feature to the messenger app–the longer you spend in the app the more time for you to be shown ads and the more revenue Facebook can make. And, of course, thanks to the psychology of notifications (long story short, most people get anxiety when they don’t check them, but that’s an article for another day), the more in our face a notification is, the greater the urge for us to need to answer it as fast as possible.
Now, if you’re as turned off by this feature (which is, of course, on by default), there is hope. Here’s how to turn off Chat Heads in Facebook.
- Open the Facebook Messenger app.
- Tap on your face at the top right to get to settings.
- Scroll down and turn off Chat Head.
Now, you’ll just get normal notifications like every other messaging app on the planet. Hope that helped some other people who might have been frustrated. Let me know in the comments below or reach out to me on social.
Låter ju sunt.
THANK YOU!!! I knew it was in settings, but the sly b**tards hid settings and I had no idea where to go!!!
Ha glad this helped!
Super, thanks!
Happy I could help!
bless you
this was driving me bananas
You’re very welcome!
Thank you! Was driving me nuts – latest upgrade turned all that crap on. I hate when they change things that you have previously set.
Yeah me too. Obviously doing it on purpose too annoys me more ?
Glad this helped though!
For some reason, I was just blessed with these this evening. Conversations and “stories” from weeks ago were popping up and I could NOT get rid of them despite bailing out of every app and turning everything I could find to “off.”
Finally got the chat heads to disappear by swiping all of the heads down and off my Galaxy S9+ but had to come web surfing to find out how to make them never come back. How utterly creepy!
That’s super weird that it did that all at once. Glad this solved it though!
Thanks! Hate crap like this – thanks helping improve the user experience buy turning crap off!
Me too lol Glad it helped!
I want to get rid of some of my chat heads, but not all of them. How do I do that
Unfortunately I don’t think there is a way to do that.
Thank you for the chat head info. Now the evil is banished!
Ha welcome glad it helped!
Oh thank you! I got rid of them a few years ago but I had forgotten how and today I had to do a factory reset on my phone which lied to me and didn’t really back up my apps. I found this and it was so easy!!! The best thiing that happened today!!!
Aww glad I could help!
fantastic. This is THE most annoying app feature since I switched to Android from iPhone last week. Expecially because you end up accidentally hitting it when you’re in another app. Go Facebook, make all your user-base hate you!! I was ready to throw my new shiny OLED-screened XZ3 phone against the wall.
Ha glad this helped (and saved your phone lol)
Someone explain to me how Chat Heads are a bad thing, it’s the major reason i use Messenger over everything else – if Discord or WhatsApp had these, Messenger would be my last choice of those
Thank you so much I was about to uninstall the whole app. I now remember doing this 2 times before when those bobbleheads started popping up on my screen. I don’t know why messenger does that it gives you the feeling that some virus took over your device. They’re not very clever
Ha agreed. Glad I could help!
Thanks a LOT!
I have been searching in settings-notification ……
Disabled notification to get rid of shit………yet it was on…..????????
Ha you’re very welcome!
Thank you. I hate any app that insists on being a pop-up and covering a portion of another app… and that is what these god dam “chat heads” are. Perfectly happy with them being banished to the notification drawer.
Happy I could help!
Thank you! Just got a new phone and am trying to turn off all.the.annoying.things.
Happy I could help!
I am having the same chathead in whatsapp since this week. Any idea how to disable.this? Tnx
Really?? Can you post a screenshot here of that? I’ve never seen that before.
Thanks for that simple and clear fix for a typically annoying FB practice…Kudos!!
You’re very welcome! Glad I could help!
Will it show that I seen a message if the chat heads are on?
If you read the message regardless of how it shows as seen.
Will it show that I saw the message if the chat head is on?
Thank you! This was driving me nuts!
You’re welcome!
I freaking hate those things. And the thing that is annoying with facebook (besides, like, everything) is that when they push an update, they often force reset your preferences. Because…assholes. Thanks for the help turning that crap off.
Omg. The updates turning this crap back on like they think we’ll just all of a sudden be okay with it? Idiots ?
Glad I could a little! Thanks for leaving your thoughts about it!
Yeah, FB doesn’t do ‘subtle’ very well at all lol
?♂️
I did as you said re the chat heads on messenger to deactivate it. The slide is to the left indicating it is off, however it is still active and messages pop up on my top screen bar all the time. How can I fix this please?
The top screen bar as in your notifications? That isn’t chat heads that’s just how you receive all your notifications. If you want to turn that off entirely, go to Settings > Apps and tap on Facebook and turn off Notifications, then do the same for the Messenger app. Or you can uninstall them as well.
Thank you, my screen is cracked and sometimes it was impossible to get rid of the chat head thing, I didn’t know where the option to turn it off was. Btw, the changed the picture from the right side to the left now.
Glad I could help!
I have had mine turned off for months and I still get Chat heads, not only do I get one chat head, but I GET TWO! And so I get two really loud PINGS when it happens. Any ideas how to fix this?
Make sure you followed the steps above to turn it off. Sounds like it might have been turned back on by an update or something. Post the screen shot here if the chat head option turned off on your phone and the chat heads still coming up if it’s still happening.
So annoying, it’s turned off. I did find that I could disable the notification in the individual person’s message, so I did that, but that means I would have to do it for each person. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/a6331bd4f0b2a3d3b99d8bae9ae5e7b42b5bd32dfa8aede37ecfb75f4df5ea26.jpg
Hmm ok so do you have a screen shot of the chat head floating on the screen too by any chance?
No sorry, I dumped them before I wrote the first message.
At okay no worries well hopefully they don’t come back after this.
OK, so this one popped up over the weekend, again, double notification (used to come up with two chat heads, but now it’s just one but made the noise twice) https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64610793af24a6e96c777e12545ffbd462d55feace610ed0ea116bc3e22e8ae1.jpg
Interesting. Do you have multiple Facebook accounts on the phone?
If so, make sure that you are viewing each account when you go to settings to turn off chat heads individually for each one.
If not, I’d maybe suggest just going to Settings > Notifications > find facebook and in there you can manually turn off notifications for Facebook based on what they are (or kill them entirely).
Also, try uninstalling and reinstalling Facebook as well.
I only have the one facebook account, but I do manage 3 pages, but these are all on my private facebook account. I have shutdown ALL notifications, I never get facebook notifications, never have as I shut them down years ago, but with everything shut down, I still get this chathead pop up….I HATE it!
Here is the actual person I was having a conversation with, you get to this screen the same way you get to settings, you click on their picture in messenger. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/64a175c478e3b10a11482d96c9656ea234de94a6d0595304247a1895d1e2ef13.jpg
THANK YOU!!!
Welcome!