Solid evidence surfaced today regarding the native Facebook Messenger app that will be hitting the Mac platform later this year. The app will support both macOS and Windows, with leaked images and videos depicting a user interface that looks like a cross between the Skype app and Apple’s Messages.

As unearthed by French blog iGeneration.fr (Google Translate) from the now-removed official announcement, the desktop app seems to offer much the same features as its mobile counterpart, including group video calling.

Here’s an excerpt from the now-removed blog post.

We’re also launching a desktop app for Messenger that’s available for both Windows and macOS. People want to seamlessly message from any device and sometimes they just want a little more space to share and connect with the people they care about most.

You can download Messenger Desktop — and enjoy the same features as the app on your phone — like group video calls, collaborate on projects or multi-task while chatting in Messenger. We are testing this now and will roll it out globally later this year.

The news has arrived ahead of Facebook’s annual F8 conference for developers kicking off tonight that will update us on the company’s plans for Messenger.

Mark Zuckerberg recently announced a pivot to privacy that will result in the messaging features of Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram being integrated into a single app with end to end encryption and an iMessage-like layer for SMS.

Don’t expect the chats to integrate this year. According to Facebook, 2019 will be a transitional period for Facebook’s unified messaging efforts. Moreover, the integration of WhatsApp’s and Instagram’s messaging features won’t be finalized before 2020 at the earliest.

The social networking giant is also expected to reintegrate Messenger functionality into the main Facebook mobile app.

Watching a video with participants with real time video reactions

iGeneration reports that today’s F8 keynote will announce other Messenger features like reducing the size of the installed mobile Messenger app from about 70 megabytes down to less than 30 megabytes.

The current version of the Messenger installer is a 247-megabyte download. The optimized app should launch in less than two seconds and there will be some new features, too.

As an example, Messenger users will be able to take advantage of a dedicated section that will serve as an improved attachments browser for all your images, videos, Stories and other content shared with chat participants.

The app will also let you share a video like a short movie with several participants at the same time in a virtual lounge where people will show their reactions on video.