Run your Instagram inbox from your iPhone

Tap Messages at the bottom of the screen, tap Compose in the top right, and choose the people you want to write to. Type your message and tap Send. Instagram's Help Center (iPhone view, read 13 October 2026) adds that you can tap Camera to send a disappearing photo or video, or Add photo or video to pick one from your library.

To message someone you follow, there is a shortcut: open their profile and tap Message.

One rule catches people out. If the person does not follow you or is not already connected to you, your message goes to them as a message request and can hold text only. Photos, videos and voice notes wait until they accept. Disappearing photos and videos can go only to people who follow you or have already approved messages from you. Instagram says you can send a message to anyone, but depending on their settings it may arrive as a request.

When someone accepts your request, your future messages go straight to their inbox.

Messages from people you follow appear in your Chats list. Messages from people you do not follow arrive as requests, and Instagram says you need to accept a request before it shows in Chats. To deal with them, tap Messages, tap Requests in the top right, tap a message and choose Accept or Delete. Tap Edit, then Delete all, to clear the whole folder. Accepting a request sends that person's future messages straight to your inbox.

Requests that Instagram thinks are offensive, unwanted or spam go to a separate Spam folder, along with any that match your Hidden words. Open it from Requests by tapping Spam. Instagram says you get no notifications for spam, so look inside by hand. If a message you expected is missing, the full list of folders and filters to check goes through each one.

A Business or Creator account gets a three-folder inbox in the phone app. Primary holds messages you want to see first, with notifications on. General holds messages for later, with notifications off unless you turn them on. Requests holds messages you have not accepted. On a personal account you can instead pin up to three chats to the top of the inbox: tap and hold a conversation, then tap Pin.

Tap and hold a message you received to Reply, add a sticker, Forward it, or tap an emoji to react. Tap and hold a message you sent to Edit or Unsend it. Instagram's Help Center says you have up to 15 minutes to edit a message, each message can be edited up to five times, and an edited message shows the word Edited above it. Unsending removes the message for everyone in the chat, though they may already have seen it.

You can pin up to three messages in a chat, which Instagram says is not available to everyone yet. You can also schedule a text-only message: write it, tap and hold the icon next to your message as the Help Center describes, and choose a date and time. The time zone comes from your iPhone's settings, and only you can see the message until it sends. To review it, tap Scheduled message in the chat, where you can send it now, copy it or delete it. Photos, videos and GIFs cannot be scheduled. What a person can schedule by hand and what a tool can schedule are different questions, covered in can you schedule Instagram DMs.

Type a / in the message box to see action commands, such as /silent, which sends a message without a notification. Type @ to list people you can mention, which works only in chats with three or more people.

Most of them sit in one place. Tap Profile at the bottom right, tap Menu at the top right, and under How others can interact with you tap Messages and story replies. From there you can change three things.

• Message requests. Choose whether requests from people on Instagram go to your Message requests folder or are not received at all. The same screen holds Hide unwanted message requests, which Instagram says is off by default, and a Connected tools switch, Allow access to messages, that decides whether apps you have connected can view and send your Instagram messages. If you use a DM tool, leave it on: with it off, a tool cannot send replies.
• Read receipts and Activity Status. Show read receipts controls whether people see that you have read their message. Show Activity Status controls whether people you follow or message see when you were last active. For one chat only, open it, tap the chat name at the top and tap Privacy and safety.
• Locked chats. In the same Privacy and safety screen, Lock and hide chat moves a conversation to a hidden folder that opens only with your phone's authentication, such as your face or passcode. The chat is locked on your account only.

Two switches have to agree, one in Instagram and one in iOS. In Instagram, tap Profile, then Menu, then Notifications under How you use Instagram. Instagram says it can notify you when someone sends you a message, and the same screen lets you pause push notifications for a time you choose. In iOS, open Settings, tap Notifications, tap Instagram and check that Allow Notifications is on (Apple's iPhone User Guide, read 13 October 2026).

If both are on and alerts still come late, check two Apple settings. Under Notifications, an app can be set to Scheduled Summary instead of Immediate Delivery, which holds alerts until the times you chose. And a Focus delays notifications: in Settings, tap Focus, open the one you use, tap Apps and add Instagram under Allow Notifications From.

Remember what Instagram itself does not alert you about. Instagram sends no notifications for the Spam folder, and on a professional account the General folder has notifications off until you turn them on.

Work through the order Instagram's own troubleshooting page gives, starting with the least effort.

1. Restart your iPhone. Instagram says to try this first.
2. Check your connection. Try Instagram on Wi-Fi, then on mobile data, to see whether a weak connection is the cause.
3. Update. Run the latest version of the Instagram app and the latest iOS. For iOS, go to Settings, tap General, then tap Software Update.
4. Reinstall. Touch and hold the Instagram icon on the Home Screen, tap Remove app, then download Instagram again from the App Store and log in. Instagram says your photos and profile info are saved, but you will need your login, so find it first.
5. Report it. Shake your iPhone and tap Report a problem, or go to Profile, Menu, then Help under More info and support, and tap Report a problem. Include what you were doing and a screenshot.

Many problems that look like faults are rules. A message to someone who does not follow you is a request that carries text only. If Instagram warned you about sending too many messages and you carried on, it says you may be unable to send DMs for a period of time. The Help Center page gives no number, so we cannot give one. And if a message you expected never showed, look in Requests and Spam from the second step above.

The Instagram inbox on your iPhone is built for conversations you open one at a time, and it cannot reach a comment. A person who comments under your reel has not started a chat with you, so there is no thread for a saved reply to go into. Instagram's own helpers are real but small: professional accounts can save replies and can set up to four frequently asked questions, and Meta Business Suite adds instant replies and away messages. None of them answers a comment.

What Instagram does allow is one private reply to a comment, sent within 7 days of it. inDM sends that reply for you when a comment contains your keyword, along with a short public reply, so the "link please" messages stop landing in your phone. Automation needs a Business or Creator account. You can switch with these steps and switch back at any time, but Instagram says a private account becomes public when it goes professional. The first comment-to-DM setup takes a few minutes. For sorting what still arrives in the inbox, how to manage Instagram DMs goes further.

Two things we could not confirm. Menu names and positions change between versions of the app, so match the words and not the place. And the Help Center pages we read do not say how long a Spam folder keeps messages, so we have left it out.