Facebook is killing off one of its worst features - and some users may not have even known it existed.
The 'other' folder for messages allowed anyone to communicate with users, regardless of whether they were friends.
As a result, it often became a repository for spam and sometimes creepy advances from people you barely knew.
The 'other' folder only showed up on desktop, and you did not get notifications when messages arrived.
That meant it was easily overlooked and messages sometimes sat unread for months.
The good news is it's being scrapped and will be replaced with 'message requests', another way for people you don't know to get in touch which the social media giant is hoping will work better.
"We truly want to make Messenger the place where you can find and privately connect with anyone you need to reach, but only be reached by the people you want to communicate with," David Marcus, Facebook's head of message products, said in a post.
"Now, the only thing you need to talk to virtually anyone in the world, is their name.
"As a result of these changes, we're removing the 'other folder' that was only accessible from the web, and are enabling you to accept or ignore new requests without the requester knowing you've read their message."
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 sent to your inbox.
Everything else will now be a message request which is sent to your regular inbox, and you can accept or decline it.
The potential downside? You may find your inbox cluttered with messages from strangers. At least you'll know they were sent though, which is an improvement on the current position.
Facebook has been testing the message requests feature with a small group in recent months, but plans to roll it out for everyone in the next few days.
