How to enable end-to-end encryption on Facebook Messenger

Illustration by Samar Haddad / The Verge

While protecting your privacy online has been a topic of interest for a while now, events in the news have brought it to the forefront. How do you keep your privacy when you stay in touch with friends and family? Sometimes you can't convince people to use a messaging app that has more privacy features. Do you have an alternative? If they insist on using Facebook Messenger, what?

You can use end-to-end Encryption on Messenger.

End-to-end encryption means that no one should be able to read what you say in your chat. Each party has a special key assigned to their account that can be used to unlocked the message. E2EE is only available on a per-chat basis. If you are about to start a Messenger conversation that you want to keep private, here's how to turn it on. The process is usually the same for both phones.

• In your Messenger mobile app, select Chats in the bottom menu.
• Tap on the Edit icon in the upper right (it looks like a pen).
• Toggle on the lock icon in the top right.
• Select the name of the person you want to chat with. (Note: according to Meta, there are some accounts you can’t use with E2EE, such as businesses and accounts of public figures.)

It is possible to enable E2EE if you are already talking with the person.

• Within the conversation, tap the information (looks like an “i”) icon in the top right.
• Tap Go to secret conversation.

When you close the chat, you can enter Vanish mode, which will make the conversation disappear.

• In the information page, tap Vanish mode.
• Toggle Vanish mode on.

One thing to be aware of is that the people in the conversation and their devices can't be seen. If you start a conversation on one mobile device, you have to sign in to the Messenger app on the other device and manually add it to the conversation if there is a new device added.

You can use the Messenger app on a number of browsers, but private mode must be disabled for it to work.