Facebook is retiring its email service and has begun notifying users that all email sent to their @facebook.com address will soon be forwarded to their primary email address on file. Facebook users can turn off the forwarding feature, which is on by default. Users without a primary email address on Facebook won't receive forwarded messages, but it's pretty unlikely that they're missing anything. "Most people have not been using their @facebook.com email address," said a Facebook spokesperson, who confirmed that the update effectively retires the social network's email service.
Facebook launched its email service back in November 2010 in hopes of providing one inbox where users could send and receive emails and messages. "It seems wrong that an email message from your best friend gets sandwiched between a bill and a bank statement," the company wrote in its announcement blog post for the feature. The service didn't catch on, perhaps in part because Facebook never truly created a friendly or familiar interface for emailing. The Messages screen always prioritized Facebook messages, and didn't even support cc's, bcc's, or subject lines.
The email feature, rarely updated, has in fact caused more trouble than it's been worth for Facebook. In June 2012, Facebook highlighted @facebook.com email addresses on profiles while hiding other email addresses. The move was intended to return user profiles to a blank slate where email addresses were private, but the outcome was that people thought Facebook was favoring its own email services over others.
Today's update brings another odd and unfortunate side effect for Facebook: you can now reach someone's primary email inbox by emailing their @facebook.com email address. These email addresses are by default only accessible to friends, but you can easily figure out somebody's @facebook.com email address by finding their profile page's URL and pasting it before the @ symbol. Fortunately, Facebook lets you turn off forwarding altogether, effectively destroying its email service once and for all.
Comments
“Aw-shucks”
-Said nobody ever.
By penguinchiller on 02.24.14 4:28pm
So long, we barely even knew ya.
By dylanseeger on 02.24.14 4:28pm
Good, they should focus on other things that actually is not redundant at this stage, and WhatsApp is not one of those things.
By Kirielson on 02.24.14 4:29pm
Came here to say this.
By ChickenAndBroccoli on 02.24.14 4:34pm
yeah, spokesperson specifically called out “focusing on mobile” as one of the reasons behind this
By ellishamburger on 02.24.14 4:34pm
Thanks for the heads up on disabling it. Now that’s a door open for spam if I saw one. :p
By Jonas N on 02.24.14 4:31pm
I’m sure the employees hated their work @fb.com alias.
By Jason Diaz on 02.24.14 4:31pm
Ironically, the use case they tried to meet with this (giving higher priority to e-mail from friends) is now being served by updates to GMail which understand your social graph better since G+ arrived.
Anyone know if outlook.com makes similar filtering choices based on your Facebook friends?
By shawndrape on 02.24.14 4:33pm
Wait, so they’re forwarding all emails to your vanity URL to your primary URL, which may not be public on Facebook?
This is really going to end well. Thanks a lot, Facebook.
By Ayepecks on 02.24.14 4:37pm
By My Only Name Change on 02.24.14 5:18pm
“…which is on by default.”
By Ayepecks on 02.24.14 5:26pm
Yes, and the FB e-mail address, by default, is hidden.
By Jozsef Kiraly on 02.24.14 5:42pm
Yes, and it’s also, by default, the same as the vanity URL for most people. Do you not see the problem here? People that are unaware of the default setting could have people they don’t know emailing their personal account now. There are lots of situations in which that could be an extremely bad thing — do I really have to clarify it?
By Ayepecks on 02.24.14 5:51pm
Seeing how you can simply delete the message and change the settings without ever replying to the email or exposing your email address. I’m not sure how this is an “extremely bad thing.”
So yes please clarify.
By My Only Name Change on 02.24.14 5:57pm
…stalkers, those you have a restraining order against, etc? Is it really that hard for you to fathom these things exist?
Not everyone uses Facebook on a daily basis or on their computers; it’s not hard to imagine why it’s a poor decision to make email forwarding the default option that you have to opt out of.
By Ayepecks on 02.24.14 6:24pm
Once again please explain to me how in the hell a stalker can bother you if they are never given the email address and the forwarding feature can be turned off.
How is this any different than them contacting you by the original @facebook.com address to begin with.
You seem to have this idea that a stalker is going to get your primary email address when Facebook is acting as a mediary and offering an optional forwarding service.
By My Only Name Change on 02.24.14 6:51pm
OK, first of all you need to stop acting like a prick.
Secondly, as I already explained: The email address used with the @facebook.com domain was based on a user’s vanity URL. If you can find the user on Facebook, you can find his or her email. What I didn’t explain — and what I assumed anyone with half a brain commenting on a tech website knew — was that most messages from people you didn’t know went to spam in the Facebook email.
This presents a problem: Now that all email is forwarded to your personal email account, anyone can essentially email your vanity URL and have it show up in your inbox. This could be a very sad situation for anyone who has a stalker (or someone you don’t want knowing how to contact you in general; Facebook previously made it harder to contact people you don’t know).
I have no idea where you’ve gathered this false impression in your head that I implied someone would get a user’s primary email address simply by emailing the @facebook.com vanity address. Where on earth are you pulling this from? It sounds more like you came in looking for a fight and didn’t bother to comprehend the actual comments being put in front of you.
By Ayepecks on 02.25.14 12:12am
Anyone else feel like they’re in YouTube comments right now?
By netgem21 on 02.25.14 12:56am
@ayepecks @adam meddaugh bring it on guys :p
By nothanks91 on 02.25.14 1:41am
Nah, too well-written. I’m barely with Ayepecks, but he should just quit replying to this other guy. The stalker thing is in the weeds too, the point is a whole bunch of non-tech savvy people will suddenly get more email in their primary account, be confused, and probably complain.
By RainingGlitteryMind on 02.25.14 11:32am
Its time for everyone to switch to Nokia Mail!
It has the best Symbian mail client!
By ***** on 02.24.14 4:37pm
Umm, what?
By Mo.hit on 02.24.14 9:37pm
Travel back to 2007
By nothanks91 on 02.25.14 1:42am
THANK GOD
By icantbelieveitsnotbuttah on 02.24.14 4:39pm
Thanks! One can finally view actual email addresses in the profile.
By yieldway17 on 02.24.14 4:41pm