Caprine

Elegant Facebook Messenger desktop app

Caprine is an unofficial and privacy-focused Facebook Messenger app with many useful features.

Website

Highlights

Dark theme
Vibrant theme*
Privacy-focused
Keyboard shortcuts
Menu bar mode*
Work Chat support
Code blocks
Touch Bar support
Custom styles
Disable autoplay for videos
Cross-platform
Silent auto-updates
Custom text size
Emoji style setting

*macOS only

Install

macOS 10.10+, Linux, and Windows 7+ are supported (64-bit only).

Download the latest version on the website or below.

macOS

Download the .dmg file.

Or with Homebrew-Cask: $ brew cask install caprine

Linux

Download the .AppImage or .deb file.

Arch Linux: pacman -S caprine

Also available as a snap.

The AppImage needs to be made executable after download.

Windows

Download the .exe file.

For taskbar notification badges to work on Windows 10, you'll need to enable them in Taskbar Settings.

Features

Dark mode

You can toggle dark mode in the View menu or with Command d / Control d.

Hide Names and Avatars

You can prevent others from looking at who you're chatting with by enabling the “Hide Names and Avatars” feature in the “View” menu or with Command/Control Shift n.

Vibrancy

On macOS, you can toggle the window vibrancy effect in the View menu.

Privacy

You can choose to prevent people from knowing when you have seen a message and when you are currently typing. These settings are available under the Caprine/File menu.

Mute desktop notifications

You can quickly disable receiving notifications from the Caprine/File menu or the Dock on macOS.

Hide notification message preview

You can toggle the Show Message Preview in Notification setting in the Caprine/File menu.

Prevents link tracking

Links that you click on will not be tracked by Facebook.

Jump to conversation hotkey

You can switch conversations similar to how you switch browser tabs: Command/Control n (where n is 1 through 9).

Compact mode

The interface adapts when resized to a small size.

Desktop notifications

Desktop notifications can be turned on in Preferences.

Always on Top

You can toggle whether Caprine stays on top of other windows in the Window/View menu or with Command/Control Shift t.

Image paste confirmation

Confirmation before sending images from the clipboard, to prevent accidental copy-pastes.

Work Chat support

Support for Work Chat: Messenger for Workplace. You can switch to it in the Caprine/File menu.

Code blocks

You can send code blocks by using Markdown syntax.

Background behavior

When closing the window, the app will by default continue running in the background, in the dock on macOS and the tray on Linux/Windows. Right-click the dock/tray icon and choose Quit to completely quit the app. On macOS, click the dock icon to show the window. On Linux, right-click the tray icon and choose Toggle to toggle the window. On Windows, click the tray icon to toggle the window.

Note that you can change the behavior of Caprine so that the app closes when the window is closed. For this, you'll need to go to the settings and click on Quit on Window Close.

Quick access to conversations from the Dock menu (macOS only)

Touch Bar support (macOS only)

Custom styles

Advanced users can modify the colors/styles of Caprine. Click the menu item Caprine/File → Caprine Settings → Advanced → Custom Styles and a CSS file will open up in your default editor.

Menu Bar Mode (macOS only)

You can enable Show Menu Bar Icon in the Caprine Preferences menu to have a Caprine icon in the menu bar. The icon will indicate when you have unread notifications and you can click it to toggle the Caprine window. You can also toggle the Caprine window with the global shortcut Command Shift y.

You can also remove Caprine from the Dock and task switcher by clicking Hide Dock Icon menu item from the menu bar icon. There will then no longer be any menus for the window, but you can access those from the Menu item in the menu bar icon menu.

Keyboard shortcuts

Description	Keys
New conversation	`Command/Control` `n`
Search conversations	`Command/Control` `k`
Toggle "Dark mode"	`Command/Control` `d`
Hide Names and Avatars	`Command/Control` `Shift` `n`
Next conversation	`Command/Control` `]` or `Control` `Tab`
Previous conversation	`Command/Control` `[` or `Control` `Shift` `Tab`
Jump to conversation	`Command/Control` `1`…`9`
Insert GIF	`Command/Control` `g`
Insert sticker	`Command/Control` `s`
Insert emoji	`Command/Control` `e`
Insert text	`Command/Control` `i`
Search in conversation	`Command/Control` `f`
Mute conversation	`Command/Control` `Shift` `m`
Archive conversation	`Command/Control` `Shift` `a`
Delete conversation	`Command/Control` `Shift` `d`
Toggle "Always on Top"	`Command/Control` `Shift` `t`
Toggle window menu	`Alt` (Windows/Linux only)
Toggle main window	`Command` `Shift` `y` (macOS only)
Toggle sidebar	`Command/Control` `Shift` `s`
Switch to Messenger	`Command/Control` `Shift` `1`
Switch to Workchat	`Command/Control` `Shift` `2`
Preferences	`Command/Control` `,`

Tip

On macOS, you can change these in the System Preferences and you can even add your own keyboard shortcuts for menu items without a predefined keyboard shortcut.

FAQ

Can I contribute localizations?

The main app interface is already localized by Facebook. The app menus are not localized, and we're not interested in localizing those.

Dev

Built with Electron.

Run

$ npm install && npm start

Build

See the electron-builder docs.

Publish

$ npm run release

chxnugs/caprine