Relay
Meta retired the Messenger desktop app and shut down messenger.com, leaving the Mac with a browser tab or nothing — Relay is a real, first-class Mac app built to take its place. A SwiftUI front end (Liquid Glass on macOS 26, frosted material below) talks over stdio/JSON to a Go helper daemon that decodes Meta's actual Lightspeed and encrypted protocols. Reactions, replies, edit/unsend, scheduled send, global full-text search over SQLite-stored local history, on-device translation, Touch ID lock, and Siri/Shortcuts intents. Universal binaries, macOS 13+, signed in-app Sparkle updates; sessions live only in the macOS Keychain.
What Wasn't Working
Meta killed the Messenger desktop app and shut down messenger.com, leaving Mac users a browser tab or nothing — and no native client exists for the Intel Macs everyone forgot.
How I Fixed It
A SwiftUI app driven by a Go helper over a stdio/JSON pipe that speaks Meta's real Lightspeed + encrypted protocols, storing full history locally in SQLite with sessions kept only in the macOS Keychain.