Tired of juggling all those messaging clients? Meet Franz, the one stop chat enabler

As long as you use internet regularly you can’t run away from instant messaging.

It’s already dominated mobile communication and even when you are using your desktop there’s that temptation to tear yourself away just to answer all those messages that are flooding your device. the reality, though, is that it’s very inconvenient to do that.

Which is what desktop chat clients like Bluestacks are designed to solve. We recently covered WhatsApp’s new desktop application that’s been designed for that sort of convenience and one reader recommended Franz an application for managing the growing number of chat clients.

It was created by Stefan Malzner, an Austrian developer (Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria inspired the app’s name)  who was frustrated by the need to stay ahead of all the messages that come from various chat clients.

The result is an application that works for Windows, Mac, and Linux desktop use.  Franz is a new tool that is primed to become your favourite application if you are trying to juggle a host of chat clients as well as multiple accounts for those same clients.

So far it handles 14 chat clients which include Slack, WhatsApp, Messenger, HipChat, Telegram, WeChat, Skype, and Hangouts.

After setting up 7 chat clients, I loved the ability to just turn to one tab and fleet through the accounts that i have to keep track of. Its something that’s very convenient of you don’t want to install each of these clients separately.

The multiple accounts per client option also makes this an awesome alternative for any social media manager or customer care representative who has to work through various accounts for different products and services.

However, the brilliant thing about Franz also presents a challenge of its own. With scattered clients, you can choose to ignore the ones that aren’t a priority and just respond to the work related client like Slack or Skype.

Having them on under tab just makes it harder to leave messages unanswered when it feels easy to just click and respond. Before you know it, you are going through those 300 messages from WhatsApp and Telegram groups.

Still, this looks like one of the best ways of setting up that one stop chat centre for multiple IM interactions.

You can download Franz by following this link here