Facebook is getting rid of its "other" inbox — the "other" inbox you might never have even known you had.
The social media giant announced that it will be phasing out its extra inbox and replacing it with its new Message Requests feature within 10 days, according to Wired. The Message Requests will be easier to find than the "other" inbox, and if a stranger initiates a conversation, you'll be able to decide whether that person can contact you a second time.
David Marcus, VP of messaging services at Facebook, took to the social media avenue earlier this week to explain more.
"If you're friends on Facebook, if you have each other's contact info in your phone and have these synced, or if you have an existing open thread, the new messages from that sender will be routed to your inbox," he explained. "Everything else will now be a message request, minus spam attempts that we will continue to ruthlessly combat."
He added: "While this may seem like a small change, it's actually a foundational development. Look for more in the months to come as we continue to improve ways to find the people you want to communicate with. And as always, please let us know how we can make this better for you."
The only drawback to the Message Requests feature is that it's possible that you could miss a message from someone you do know by the note landing in this pile.
Still, it's a better system than the "other" inbox, which, in all possibility, a majority of Facebook's one billion-plus users never even knew existed. Only those who log onto Facebook using a Web browser can see the "other" inbox, which is filled with spam messages, random party flyers and weird notes from complete strangers. If you only log in to Facebook via an app on your smartphone and thus use its messenger, you would have never seen the "other" inbox at all.
