macOS

Access Facebook chat within iChat, Adium or Pidgin

Last February, Facebook announced that they would be opening their chat system to 3rd party clients such as Adium, iChat, Pidgin, etc., which means you no longer have to be signed into Facebook.com in order to chat with your facebook buddies. This is extremely nice since a lot of people don’t really want to keep a browser window open constantly while they are managing other tasks.

How to setup iChat to use Facebook Chat:

  • Launch iChat, normally it will be the icon that looks like the one iniChat icon theimagebelow, which is on your dock. If it is not on the dock then you can find it within your Applications folder. If all else fails search for it in Spotlight.
  • From iChat, navigate to the Preferences which is under the iChat menu on the top left hand side of your screen.
  • Click on the “Accounts” tab icon and click the “+” sign in the corner to add a new account.
  • In the “Account Type” menu, select “Jabber” to enter information relative to your Facebook account.
  • Enter your Facebook Username (your username is in your vanity url, facebook.com/your_name), you can find or set your Facebook username by going here on Facebook.com. If you have never created a facebook username will need to do so in order to get this to work.)
  • Enter the password to your Facebook account.
  • Now under the “Server Options” settings, enter the server as ‘chat.facebook.com’ and the port as ‘5222’ (without quotes obviously)

iChat Accounts Tab

How to setup Adium to use Facebook Chat:

  • Go to the Adium menu and select “Preferences.”Adium Example
  • Click the “+” at the bottom of the Accounts tab and select “Jabber” from the pull-down menu.
  • Fill in the following information:
  • Jabber ID: <your facebook username>@chat.facebook.com
    Password: <your facebook password>

How to setup Pidgin to use Facebook Chat:

  • Go to the “Accounts” and select “Manage Accounts.”
  • On the Basic tab, enter the following info:Pidgin
  • Protocol: XMPP
    Username: <your facebook username>
    Domain: chat.facebook.com
    Resource: Pidgin
    Password: <your facebook password>
    Local alias: <your name>
    Click the Advanced tab, then enter the following info:
    Connect port: 5222
    Connect server: chat.facebook.com
    (uncheck the box labeled “Require SSL/TLS”)

Facebook has an official Chat page on Facebook.com if you’re confused or need additional help setting up the Facebook IM clients, but the setup procedure is practically identical regardless of what IM client you are using.

Keep in mind you are not limited to iChat, with Jabber support you can actually use Facebook Chat with any other multi-use instant messaging client that supports the Jabber XMPP protocol.

About the author

Kevin

Kevin is the Founder and Senior Editor of Tech Heavy. When he isn't writing about the latest tech tools he spends his days working in an IT department in Dubuque, IA. @kevincray