Why Can’t I Delete Messages on Instagram?

Instagram is the most popular social network for posting images and photos. Its users follow and are followed by others to receive likes on their publications, and every day it is the most preferred by artists, influencers and celebrities.

But the app does not escape from being a medium that allows you to issue an opinion, a comment or a message that may not be the most appropriate for some.

If you use this application, maybe you have made a rude comment to someone and you want to delete it but don’t know how to do it. Or maybe someone made a public comment on your photo that you don’t like. Did you know that you can delete those messages?

If you’ve tried to do so it’s possible that after you delete a comment on Instagram, it keeps popping up. This may happen because you are viewing an old version of the Instagram page, because of connection issues, or because Instagram is in the middle of fixing it.

This causes that when you check your page you get an error message that your comment cannot be deleted. Don’t worry, the system must be in the process. Close the page, log out and check it again later.

Anyway, here we will explain you the options to correctly delete Instagram messages, both in your feed posts and private messages, known as live messages.

Follow these steps below to proceed to delete messages from your Instagram.

Delete Messages in Your Instagram Posts

On Instagram you can only delete comments on your posts. This covers your own comments as well as those of other users. When it comes to other people’s posts, you can only delete your comments.

There is no limit to deleting posts on Instagram. To delete your comments or other people’s comments on your posts, follow these instructions according to the smart device you own:

How to Delete Messages on Android

1. Open the Instagram application.
2. Go to the post where the message to be deleted is.
3. Open the comments.
4. Press and hold the comment to delete.
5. Press the “Delete” icon, the trash symbol that appears on your screen in the upper right corner.

You can delete several comments at once, just select them.

How to Delete Instagram Messages on iPhone

1. Open the Instagram application.
2. Go to the post where the message to be deleted is.
3. Swipe the comment to the left.
4. Press the “Delete” icon, trash symbol. That’s it, it will be deleted. You can undo this option immediately if you press “Undo“, otherwise the message will be permanently deleted.

When it comes to other people’s comments on your post, with this option you will be able to delete that message, but also, you will have the option to:

1. Press the message, and report the user (by tapping the option with the exclamation mark), and select “Report this comment”.

You can also mute or restrict the user of that comment, even “unfollow” if you prefer.

This is useful when dealing with messages that you find offensive, that you don’t like or that you consider out of place.

Delete Your Comments on Other User’s Posts

1. Press and hold your comment.
2. The “Delete” option appears at the top of the screen.
3. You can undo this option if you want too, by tapping “undo“, otherwise it will be deleted.

Delete DMs on Instagram

When you have sent a DM, but you have sent the wrong person or it was not the right message, you can apply this deletion process that is already possible in private chats on Instagram:

1. Open the conversation where the message you want to delete is.
2. Press and hold the message and the “Unsend” option will appear at the bottom of the screen. In addition to the “reply” and “More” options.
3. Select “Unsend“.

That’s it, the message you selected will disappear.
The message will be deleted, but the sender will not see it if you did this action before that person has read it.

Delete a Complete DM Conversation

1. Log in to your Instagram.
2. Go to the DM conversations.
3. Press and hold the conversation you want to delete.
4. The options “Delete“, “Mute messages” and “Mute call notifications” appear at the bottom of your screen.
5. Press “Delete” and you are done.

In case you have an iPhone:

1. Swipe to the left and the “More” option will appear in addition to “Mark” and “Unread“
2. Then choose “more“
3. Then the “Delete or mute” option
4. Finally tap “Delete“.

This will delete the conversation completely, and you can start the conversation again whenever you want with that user.