Baffling Browsers

Scroll to the Top of Facebook Messages

Last updated on October 4, 2022

This JavaScript bookmarklet automatically loads and scrolls to the top of any conversation in Facebook Messenger (one “page” at a time), with one click of a button.

To install the bookmarklet, click here to bring up a page with the bookmarklet in it, along with some simple instructions.

Also see my Expand All bookmarklet.

A few details

This bookmarklet works with the web-based Facebook Messenger at www.facebook.com. It does not work with m.facebook.com or any of the apps. Use it from a PC.

  • If not in Messenger already, click the Scroll All bookmarklet button to navigate to Messenger. This action is just a convenience.
  • Once in Messenger, select the conversation you want to load.
  • Click the Scroll All bookmarklet button to start loading and scrolling to the top of the conversation. It will stop when it reaches the very top. Then, you can Ctrl+F to your heart’s content.
  • To cancel loading messages, click the bookmarklet button again; you’ll get visual feedback as it stops.

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Jens-Ingo Farley

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Comments

16 responses to “Scroll to the Top of Facebook Messages”

  1. John Armstrong Avatar
    John Armstrong

    Awesome solution, thank you!!

    Reply
  2. arthur Avatar
    arthur

    when I’m on the top and start to scroll down it still brings me back to the top… I’m using Firefox

    Reply
    1. Jens-Ingo Farley Avatar
      Jens-Ingo Farley

      I don’t see the problem when I use it. From your description, it sounds like it doesn’t realize it hit the top. If so, it should be in a cancelable state, and so clicking on the bookmarklet again should cancel it.

      Reply
  3. Stephanie Avatar
    Stephanie

    I LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Reply
  4. alisha Avatar
    alisha

    please hep i cant get this to work on my mac using safari. i cant drag and drop it anywhere or toggle bookmarks whatever that means ahah

    Reply
    1. Jens-Ingo Farley Avatar
      Jens-Ingo Farley

      ⇧⌘B (shift-command-B) toggles the presence of the bookmark (favorites) toolbar. Once the toolbar is there, you can drag and drop to it. Toggling the presence of the toolbar means that if the toolbar is showing, it is hidden; if the toolbar is hidden, it is shown. Doing that a few times is nondestructive and shows the eye where the toolbar is.

      Reply
  5. Hashim Avatar
    Hashim

    Hi Jens,

    Firstly, this is a great tool and something I’ve been searching for for years, to help with archiving and going through a few of my Messenger conversations.

    I couldn’t find a Github for the tool so I’m posting this here: I’ve found that the tool starts to get exponentially slower the further back it goes. In a conversation going back 3 years, it’s taken >2 hours to get past the 2 year point, and it’s now effectively so slow that it hasn’t moved for more than 20 mins. Is this a known limitation or something that could be optimised better?

    I’d appreciate any feedback and insight you could give.

    Thanks

    Reply
    1. Jens-Ingo Farley Avatar
      Jens-Ingo Farley

      I haven’t studied it closely, but I can give my impressions. Yes, it slows over time, like so many things that run / load in the browser for a long time. I think the only realistic way for a browser to handle massive amounts of data is paging of some kind, and yet paging has usability issues; there’s no perfect solution.

      This bookmarklet does not attempt a “redo” of how Facebook did things but rather does the simplest possible thing so that (usually) you can do something else for a few minutes and have it be done automatically. It simply saves the time and attention of needing to manually click-and-scroll and clicks-and-scrolls automatically; there isn’t any room for optimization.

      Side note: I’ve never had it stop, just get a bit slow (maybe 10 seconds per page); just now, Mozilla Firefox was much faster than Google Chrome. The longest conversation I’ve used this on is about 3½-years or about 500 pages if I were to print it. The browser used almost 4 GB of RAM, which is quite massive. I would only use it (and it might fail if not using) on a 64-bit OS and 64-bit browser.

      Reply
  6. GJ Avatar
    GJ

    I’m not able to get Scroll All to work on Chrome in the US today (12/18). It did work for me a few weeks ago, but now it does nothing at all. It does work on Firefox but Firefox keeps crashing when I use it. I tried downloading Opera to see if it would work there, but it also does nothing on Opera.

    I am running Windows Chrome version 87.0.4280.88, 32 bit, which appears to be the latest and greatest.

    Reply
    1. Jens-Ingo Farley Avatar
      Jens-Ingo Farley

      It works for me in Chrome and Firefox. I know that Facebook has been wavering between different HTML approaches for a few weeks. Possibly your locale is getting different HTML from what I get. I can only make work what I see; hopefully, everywhere will converge on the same HTML soon.

      Reply
  7. Doreen Avatar
    Doreen

    Hi Jens,

    I am a complete noob… I need the beginning of a certain messenger conversation for my lawyer but have no experience with computers so trying to find help online but all therms used sound like chinese to me… Would you please be so kind to ELI5 (explain me like I’m 5) ? 😀 Thank you so much!

    Reply
    1. Jens-Ingo Farley Avatar
      Jens-Ingo Farley

      I’m sorry to say this doesn’t work at the moment, and I don’t know if I will be able to fix it.

      Reply
    2. Antonie Avatar
      Antonie

      Simply use the Facebook ‘Download all of your FB info’ functionality, although you may have found another solution in the meantime.
      You can download all Messenger messages, and then select the ones you need from the downloaded file.

      Reply
  8. Antonie Avatar
    Antonie

    I tried this in Google Chrome today. First of all, it’s not clear to me what ‘Scroll All’ and ‘Expand All’ do exactly, so I used the ‘Scroll All’ button.
    It looks like Facebook is slowing down the retrieval of messages to the point, that the process get’s interrupted, and the Messenger page even clears (and shows a white page).
    I managed to download my Messenger messages using the Facebook tool in the end … Now I need a script or other solution to display the messages in chronological order oldest to newest, rather than newest to oldest … 🙂
    I am glad I found this little tool though !

    Reply
  9. Rick Bisaccia Avatar
    Rick Bisaccia

    Maybe the thousands of genius employees sitting around all day at Facebook having their neck massages, and playing hide and seek, their large catered kale-themed lunches, and pizza parties, could find the time and inspiration to improve on what I’m sure would be the ridiculously easy task of making it easier for the rest of us cyber morons to scroll our Messenger messages. Meanwhile I remain: befuddled.

    Reply
  10. ReynaG Avatar
    ReynaG

    Can’t seem to get messenger on my Iphone

    Reply

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