When Instagram first launched, it was just a place to share photos. The app has been constantly adding feature after feature, however, and one of the most popular features has been the addition of Direct Messages. Among a host of other features, users can now chat on one and create groups in which to send direct messages to each other. It sounds strange but there are many people who use Instagram as their primary instant messaging service.
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Unfortunately, Instagram wasn't designed for DMs, and it shows the relative paucity of tools for managing your DM inbox. Once your inbox is full, either with old messages from your friends or with spam and inaccurate links sent by scammers (never tap or click a link in an Instagram DM if you don't know the person who has it. sent, by the way!), it's quite a hassle to tidy everything up.
Is there a way to delete all your conversations at once and start over?
CAN YOU DELETE ALL CONVERSATIONS AT THE SAME TIME?
Unfortunately, Instagram doesn't support deleting all of your messages at once. We looked at the available Instagram support apps to see if anyone made an app to do it for you, but as of September 2019 this feature doesn't exist.
However, you can delete entire conversations in one go. This means that you will only have to repeat the deletion process once per conversation, not once per message. It's still a pain, but it's much better than having to do it one message at a time.
To delete a conversation, do the following:
- Tap the DM button at the top right of the home screen.
- Choose the conversation you want to delete and drag it to the left.
- Tap Delete.
Once this is done, the conversation will no longer be in your inbox. Note that the other person will still have access to the entire conversation; you are not deleting their copy.
If you're looking to get rid of certain conversations, you can also use the search function to find those conversations instead of having to scroll through the entire DM inbox. You can type a person's name into the search bar at the top of the screen to find and delete the conversation you had with them.
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DELETING INDIVIDUAL MESSAGES
What if you only want to delete specific messages and not the entire conversation? Well, there is a feature that could come in very handy. Instagram quietly introduced the Unsend feature a few years ago.
If you've never used it before, here's what you need to do:
- Keep the message you sent to someone.
- Select Unsent message.
This deletes the message for both you and the recipient, so it's as if you've never sent it. If you send a message that you regret later, you can delete it before the person sees it. Unfortunately, there's no way to bulk delete individual messages either, so you'll have to do this separately for each message. You can't clear their memory of getting the message or their screenshots of the message if they're paranoid, but you can at least get rid of some evidence.
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GET RID OF ALL MESSAGES DIRECTED BY ONE PERSON
There is a way to get rid of all direct messages from a person and also delete all their copy of messages. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a drastic step.
The only way to remove all messages from both people's chats is to block the person you are chatting with. This ensures that none of you will be able to see the conversation.
Doing this is very simple. Go to the person's profile, tap the three dots at the top right of the screen, then tap Block.
In addition to deleting all the messages you have sent to each other, this will also delete all of this person's likes and comments. That way, you don't have to worry about it anymore. So, if you really want to get rid of all texting with someone and don't want them to contact you again, this is the way to go.
ELIMINATE EVERYTHING WITH AUTOCLICKER
There is a way to delete all your Instagram posts, using a tool called AutoClicker (Android only) to automate the process. Auto Clicker for Android is a tool that allows you to automate repeated taps and swipes in any app or screen on your Android.
Once you use it, you will be very excited by the possibilities offered by this powerful free program. However, for now we will only focus on deleting our DMs in Instagram.
- Launch your Instagram app.
- Launch the Auto Clicker app.
- Tap “Enable” in Multi-target Mode. This will allow you to have more touch points, with a delay between touches.
- In Instagram, go to the Direct Messages screen.
- Touch and hold the green “+” symbol to create a scroll point, a circle with a circumscribed 1 inside it. Drag the scroll point to the first conversation in your DMs.
- Move the second circle inside the first circle; we're telling Auto Clicker to tap and hold.
- Tap the circle to bring up the settings dialog for this swipe; set the delay to 1000 milliseconds and the scroll time to 1000 milliseconds.
- In Instagram, long tap on the first conversation to actually move the process around so you can see where to do the next taps.
- The context menu is displayed; tap the “+” icon to add a touch point, then drag the touch point to the shortcut menu line labeled “Delete”. This will touch point 2 and will have a 2 in the circle.
- In Instagram, tap the delete line to move the process again.
- The delete confirmation menu is displayed; tap the “+” icon to create touch point 3 and drag the touch point to the appropriate point.
- Press Cancel to not delete this conversation at this point.
- Tap the gear icon and give this script a name (they call it configuration). Save the script and now you can run this command repeatedly for hundreds or thousands of iterations, automatically and without any human supervision.
- Press the blue Run arrow to run your script.
You can disable the Auto Click app interface by disabling it on the Auto Click app main screen.
It is an extremely powerful technology that you can use in many ways, not just to speed up your Instagram process!
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Conclusion
These are all options for deleting messages from your DM inbox. While having a bulk selection option would be amazing, Instagram hasn't provided any features.
If you're looking to sort your DM inbox and have a lot of conversations, arm yourself with patience and take the time to do it. And if you want to make sure that all messages exchanged between you and certain people are deleted forever, blocking them will be the final solution. Finally, you can use automation to greatly improve the speed of manual deletion.
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Further Reading:
- Your private Instagram posts and stories may not be that private
- How to hide Instagram photos (posts) without deleting them
- How to like a direct message on Instagram
- How to send a link on Instagram
- How to send or delete a private Instagram message in Windows 10