How to: Facebook chat in iChat or Adium

Last week, the fine Facebook folk let us know (via the Facebook Help Center) that you can now sign in to Facebook's chat service using iChat. Of course, the free Adium client has directly supported Facebook chat since version 1.3 (released in 2008), but this step opens up a much wider range of clients for the service.

Facebook's chat service is powered by the Jabber/XMPP open source chat protocol. Many networks (such as Google Chat) rely on Jabber, and for this reason chat clients like iChat and Adium allow for the setup of a generic Jabber account to facilitate the widespread use of Jabber.

The process is simple. First, create a new generic Jabber account pointed at Facebook's Jabber server. The username to use is your Facebook username (which you can find on the Account Settings page) and the password is the same as your Facebook login password. Next, point the server to "chat.facebook.com," configure the port to 5222 and un-check the box for "Use SSL."

After it's all said and done, you should be able to communicate with your Facebook friends using iChat without being logged in to Facebook with a browser.

[via Cult of Mac & 9to5Mac]

View Tags

Source: http://www.facebook.com/help/?ref=drop#!/help/?faq=16739

Categories

How-tos

Last week, the fine Facebook folk let us know (via the Facebook Help Center) that you can now sign in to Facebook's chat service using...

Add a Comment

Sign in »

36 Comments

Filter by:

ashwin l

thank you, it works. thanks to AndreyCo

May 14 2010 at 8:11 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

schpydurxdiehard

Facebook via iChat doesn't like switching VPNs. Facebook will only work where you were last logged into Facebook. :(

April 17 2010 at 12:16 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

astorjayson

I couldn't do it with the port settings listed. Returned an invalid username/password error. Just leave the port box blank and it will automatically choose one, and it fixed my problem. Hope this helps all of you that are having problems.

February 21 2010 at 7:46 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Mark Ross

I, for one, sure as heck don't want all those FB friends infiltrating my IM client.

February 19 2010 at 2:39 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

kevin.pritchard

Does TUAW really have this many thick people? It's not rocket science. I'm over the moon that XMPP has been finally implemented.

February 17 2010 at 2:20 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Hussain Mahmood

Wow I didn't realize there were this many new Internet users.

"your_username" means your actual user name, like john_doe, not literally the words 'your_username'.

February 17 2010 at 1:50 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Charlie

Not working for me

I see JConnection: Error: , type=4, code=999 in the console (iChat 3.1.9 for me)

February 17 2010 at 12:17 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Colin

I've been a long time Adium user but thought I'd give iChat again with this. Having an AIM and Facebook with iChat window open takes up half my screen; made me go right back to Adium.

February 16 2010 at 9:21 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

1 reply to Colin's comment

Kyle

@cdogg, use Chax to get a unified contact list and other Adium-like goodies in iChat.

http://www.ksuther.com/chax/

February 17 2010 at 8:18 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

Kyle

Works for me. But I can't seem to rename the group name in iChat. It is set as "Buddies" by default. Anyone else tried using Groups in iChat with Facebook?

February 16 2010 at 8:56 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply

christapher

Is there a way to set up different sounds for each account type? With 800 facebook friends always signing in and out my iMac sounds like the soundtrack to a 70's martial arts film.

February 16 2010 at 6:38 PM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply