Lifewire: Facebook Me-ssenger is the most popular messaging platform in the world (closely followed by WhatsApp), which makes it one of the best tools for getting in touch with people fast and for free. Despite its popularity, trying to figure out how to add people to Messenger can be kind of confusing. This is especially true in situations where your trusty Facebook friend list doesn’t already bring you and other people together automatically on Messenger.
Luckily, there are five different techniques you can use to add people to Messenger—and no, you don’t have to be Facebook friends first!
Before we get started on explaining how to add non-Facebook friends to Messenger, let’s just touch on how to find current Facebook friends on Messenger first.
If you’re new to Messenger, you might need a little help figuring out how to start chatting with your existing Facebook friends, which are automatically added to your Messenger app when you sign into it using your Facebook account login details.
Open Messenger and tap the People button in the menu in the center at the bottom of the screen followed by the Friend List button in the top right on the next tab. Your Facebook friends will be listed in alphabetical order by their last name on this tab.
Scroll through the list to find the friend you want to start chatting with. Tap the name of the friend to open a chat with them.
If a friend is not currently using the Messenger app, an Invite button will appear to the right of their name, which you can tap to invite them to download the app. Regardless of whether you invite them to download the app, you can still chat with them and they will receive your message when they log into Facebook.com.