Managing a business account on Instagram and keeping track of every single message you receive takes a great deal of time. Sometimes you may need to hide some conversations to keep your account safe when adding an admin to a shared business account. Or sometimes you have to check your Instagram archive messages and read your old conversations. What can you do in these cases?
You might wonder whether you can do this through the official Instagram app or need to get a hand from the best Instagram DM apps on the market. In the following, I’ll try to cover all these questions and help you find the best way possible to access your archived messages on Instagram, hide or unhide conversations, and more. So, stick around and keep reading.
If you don’t want to wait any longer and wish to archive your Instagram messages as soon as possible, click here for a straightforward solution.
How to See Hidden Direct Messages on Instagram
It may happen that you receive a DM notification on Instagram, but when you check your DM inbox, you see no direct messages! Why does this happen?
Well, at first you might think that this is an Instagram DM glitch, but this is not the only reason for not seeing any messages. There are two other potential reasons as well:
- You’ve just received a new message request,
- The sender of the message has removed it!
In the first case, you can access your hidden DM from the ‘Request’ part:
But when the second case happens, you have to use a third-party app like AiGrow to read the unsend messages through your email inbox.
What Does Archive Mean on Instagram
Introduced in 2017, the Instagram archive feature opened new doors to Instagrammers all around the world. Using this feature, you can now remove photos and videos from your feed without having to delete them permanently.
When you archive an Instagram post or story, only you can have access to it and it’ll be invisible to your followers. While this is an awesome feature, it’s fair to say that it’s incomplete. Unlike Facebook or WhatsApp, you can’t archive Instagram messages using the official Instagram app.
So, what are you supposed to do with your confidential chats then? What if they fall into the wrong hands? Keep reading to find out!
How to Archive Instagram Messages
As mentioned in the introduction, sometimes you may need to archive Instagram messages, especially when you wish to add an admin to a shared business account. Unluckily, the official app has no feature called ‘Instagram archive messages’, and hence, you can’t archive your old messages to better manage your DMs.
But hopefully, there are 2 ways to make an archive of your DMs and protect them all in a safer place like your computer, backup drive, or even email inbox. Let’s see how to do it!
#1 Download Instagram Data
One way to archive Instagram messages without using any third parties is to download your Instagram data. Actually, in this way, you receive all your data including DMs, comments, posts and etc. But if you prefer not to use any third parties at all, this can be a great way.
To download your Instagram data, you just have to follow these steps:
- Go to your Instagram security settings.
- From the list you see, choose ‘Download Data’.
- Then, enter your email address and password.
- And finally, request your data.
After a few hours, Instagram sends you a huge compressed file containing all your DMs. Opening the ‘Messages.json’ file, you can access all your DMs and even search among them. However, this way has some disadvantages:
- Each time you want to access your Instagram archive messages, you have to follow the same path and Instagram sends you all the data from when you created your account, not from the last time you got a backup.
- Storing all the files you receive takes a great space.
- And finding the information you need from the files you received is not that easy.
So, I recommend you to keep on reading and try the following solution instead!
#2 Connect DMs to Email
Luckily, there’s a better way to archive Instagram messages: connecting Instagram DMs to your email inbox! Well, this is not something that you can do using the official Instagram features. However, using a safe and secure third-party like AiGrow, you don’t have to worry about it.
AiGrow is an Instagram management service that allows you to grow organically on Instagram and manage all your tasks in a more organized way.
Using this super amazing tool, you can connect your DMs to your email inbox and manage your DMs without checking your Instagram. All you have to do is to sign up for free, go to the ‘DM to Email’ section and connect to your DM inbox. Then, each time you receive a message on Instagram, you’ll get an email containing your DMs. So, you are able to:
- Reply to DMs by replying to emails,
- Marking messages as unread,
- Filter your messages by sender,
- And also archive Instagram messages.
So, to better manage your old messages, check it out and sign up for free RN!
How to Archive Instagram Messages [Indirect Ways]
We’ve already discussed the two most simple ways you can use to archive your messages for later use. Let us now learn about two more ways that do the trick, however in a more complicated way.
#1 How to Archive Chats on Instagram Through Instagram Business account
Here’s an interesting one! Imagine you and your friends have a secret chat and you don’t want anyone to know about it. By switching to a professional account, you can safely archive your messages and view them later on.
Take the steps below to find out how to archive chats in Instagram DMs.
First, you need to switch to a business account. To do so:
- Go to your profile and tap on the three lines on the right upper corner of your screen,
- Tap on ‘Settings’,
- Tap on ‘Account’,
- Scroll down and select ‘switch to professional account’.
Now, it’s time to archive Instagram messages. To do so:
- Go to your direct messages,
- Tap and hold the chat you’d like to make invisible,
- And select ‘move to general’.
Now, all you need to do is to switch back to a personal account to finish the process.
In order to switch back to a personal account:
- Tap on the three bars on the right upper corner of your page again,
- Tap on ‘Settings’,
- Select ‘switch account type’,
- And choose ‘switch to a personal account’.
And that’s how to archive Instagram messages using business accounts. Now, you won’t be able to see your archived chat in your DM inbox anymore. And neither can your snoopers! However, this approach is rather a time-consuming one. If you wish to accelerate the process, sign up on AiGrow; the most advanced Instagram tool.
Pro Tip: If you’re curious to know how to see archived messages on Instagram after using this method, simply switch back to an Instagram professional account after the threat is gone! 😉
#2 How to Archive an Instagram Chat Using Vanish Mode
You’ve definitely heard ‘prevention is better than cure’. Why not stop such situations from happening rather than having to deal with them afterward? Well, vanish mode on Instagram is the prevention here!
By using this feature, you can engage in private conversations with your chat buddy in the first place. Messages exchanged in vanish mode will not be visible in the regular chat box.
Wondering how to archive messages on Instagram using the vanish mode feature? Follow the instructions below:
- First, go to your DM inbox,
- Then, open the chat you’d like to hide from your regular DM inbox,
- Next, swipe up to turn on vanish mode on Instagram,
- Finally, when you’re done chatting, simply swipe up once again to go back to your regular chat box.
Pro Tip: The messages sent in vanish mode will only remain there for a short while. Therefore, if you wish to archive Instagram chats and keep them for good, try other methods mentioned earlier in this article.
How to Hide a Conversation on Instagram without Deleting it
No matter if you are managing a personal account or a business one, Instagram doesn’t have any official features to hide or unhide messages. However, there are some ways to remove conversations from your inbox without deleting them permanently. Keep on reading to find’em out.
#1 Restrict the Sender
If you want to hide a chate from your DM inbox temporarily, restricting the sender can be an amazing option. Actually, when you restrict someone on Instagram,
- You won’t receive DM notifications from them,
- Their chat will be marked as message requests and won’t appear in your inbox,
- And you can read their messages without being seen.
So, to hide a conversation on Instagram, open the sender’s profile and then:
- Tap on the three dots icon on the top right corner of the screen,
- Tap on the ‘Restrict’ button,
- And confirm your restriction.
That’s all! Whenever you needed to access their DMs, just go to your Instagram message requests and unrestrict them.
By the way note that this way, you just move them to the requests, and people who access your inbox can still check these messages. So, jump into the next section for a better solution.
#2 Forward DMs to Email and Delete the Chat on Instagram
In the previous sections, I told you how to connect DMs to your email inbox to archive messages. Well, the truth is that when you do this, your messages will not be deleted from your email inbox unless you delete the emails. So, a good way to hide Instagram DMs is to keep the emails containing them and delete the original conversation from Instagram.
This way, you can perfectly protect your messages from other account managers. So, sign up for free on AiGrow and connect DMs to your email.
FAQs
Thus far, we’ve provided you with an all-inclusive guide on how to archive chats on Instagram. Now, let’s go over some of your frequently asked questions.
#1 Can You Archive Instagram Messages?
Basically, there’s no direct way for you to archive IG messages. Instagram has not activated the archive feature for DMs yet. However, you can use some indirect ways such as using an all-in-one app like AiGrow to help you get the job done.
We have vehemently covered all the methods you can use to archive your chat in Instagram direct messages. Therefore, make sure to read this article meticulously to find the answer.
#2 What Happens When You Archive a Post on Instagram?
Instagram archive feature allows you to hide your photos and videos from your IG profile. When you archive a post, all its likes and comments will be kept. The only thing that happens is that it’ll be removed from your profile, and transferred to your archived folder.
Final Words on Instagram Archive Messages
To wrap it up, Instagram doesn’t have any official features to help you archive messages or manage the old conversations in an organized way. But there’s no need to worry! Here, I taught you how to archive messages, hide them, and manage them easily.
However, if you don’t have the time to go through all those steps, sign up on AiGrow right now to archive your Instagram messages effortlessly and hassle-free! 100% guaranteed!