Twitter desktop update makes it easier to check your DMs

If you find yourself using the desktop version of Twitter often, then you're about to get a useful new feature. Twitter today announced the roll out of a home screen shortcut of sorts that will put your direct messages front and center. Gone are the days of switching between your timeline and messages tab, at least on the desktop iteration of Twitter.

Twitter says that this new feature is rolling out to all users on desktop, but it that roll out doesn't seem to complete at the moment (for what its worth, I'm not seeing the updated desktop site just yet). When it is live for you, you'll be able to access your direct messages in the lower right corner of the display assuming you aren't already viewing the messages tab.

Messages will be displayed in a small pop-up window in the lower right-hand corner of the site, much in the same way that messages on Facebook's desktop site appear when you aren't using Messenger proper. The idea, of course, is to save users from navigating away from their tweets and timeline just to view their messages.

It's been an eventful couple of days for the folks at Twitter – so much so that this announcement was nearly lost in all the commotion. Yesterday, hackers took over a number of major Twitter accounts and began advertising a cryptocurrency scam. There were a lot of big names whose Twitter accounts were compromised in this attack, ranging from individuals like Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates to corporations like Uber and Apple.

Twitter responded by locking down the compromised accounts and promising that it would only restore access to the original owner when it was certain it could do so "securely." Taking things one step further, it also limited functionality for all verified accounts across the board as it kicked off an investigation into the issue. Twitter says that it will provide more updates as its investigation continues, so stay tuned for that.