Upcoming Changes to the Messenger API

As part of our efforts to update our messaging products in response to new privacy rules in Europe, we are making changes that will impact some developers and businesses using apps enabled by the Messenger API.

What’s changing?

Beginning December 16, 2020, several Messenger API features will no longer be available for developers and businesses in Europe, and for people in Europe who connect with businesses on Messenger and Instagram globally.

Examples of some features that will no longer be available via Messenger API include:

• Persistent menu
• One-Time Notification
• Some templates (e.g. Airline, Receipt) and audio/video attachments
• Some templates and buttons on web (e.g. Generic, Button)

These features will continue to be available:

• Sending and receiving text messages and images
• Get Started button
• Ice breakers and quick replies
• Generic template, button template, and media template on Android and iOS only
• URL button, postback button, call button on Android and iOS only
• Private replies, m.me links and the Message Us plugin
• Webview
• Handover Protocol for Messenger

Relatedly, developers that also use the Instagram Graph API will see some metrics are no longer available. You can see more details here.

What this means for developers

APIs and UI components of the Messenger platform listed above will be unavailable to businesses in Europe in all chats, and to global businesses in chats with people in Europe. Before these changes go live on December 16, we encourage developers to update their experiences that could be affected by these changes – such as those that power Pages in Europe or Pages that receive a significant volume of messages from people in Europe – to use available features instead. For more details on what is changing, please refer to the developer documentation.

We recognize that compliance requires changes to our product experiences, and we’re committed to supporting our partners throughout this process. We’re working hard to bring features back and will provide an update if and when these features are made available again in the future.