How to find unsent messages on instagram

How To Read Unsent Messages on Instagram

Have you ever sent an Instagram message that you later regretted? Thankfully, Instagram allows users to delete silly typos or late-night embarrassing confessions whenever they want. But what if you’re on the receiving end of such a message and want to read what was said? Is there any way to view unsent messages on Instagram?

Once an Instagram direct message is unsent by the sender, it is removed from both the sender and receiver’s chat boxes. And there is no recovery option for deleted messages on Instagram, so you can’t just pop them back up.

So if you’re curious about what was said, we’ve got a couple of methods to help you view unsent messages on Instagram.

Table of Contents

1. How To Read Unsent Messages on Instagram
   • Method #1: Save Push Notification
   • Method #2: Link Email to Instagram DM
   • Method #3: Recover Messages From Instagram Server
   • Method #4: Recover Messages From Connected Facebook Account
   • Method #5: Take Screenshots
2. Summary
3. Frequently Asked Questions

How To Read Unsent Messages on Instagram

Here are the five methods you can use to read unsent messages on Instagram.

Method #1: Save Push Notification

Whenever you receive an Instagram direct message, you also get a push notification with the message’s contents. So, if you’re quick enough, you can read the message there before it’s unsent.

The issue is that once the message is unsent, the push notification also disappears. Plus, it’s easy to overlook or accidentally delete a push notification. So, to make the method more reliable, consider installing a notification log app, such as NotiSave, which keeps a copy of all notifications, including Instagram DMs. Then, even if a message is unsent, you’ll still have it in the app’s archive.

Method #2: Link Email to Instagram DM

Instagram doesn’t give the option to get email alerts for direct messages, but you can turn to a third-party app for help. One such app is AiGrow, a multipurpose tool that lets you automate various tasks on Instagram. Once you connect your Instagram app to AiGrow, the app will forward any new direct messages to your inbox as an email notification. You can even reply to those messages directly from your email.

To get started:

1. Create an AiGrow account and connect your Instagram account.
2. Then, go to “Automation” on AirGrow, and turn on “Email Notifications.”
3. Enable the option for “Direct Messages”. After that, any new direct messages will be forwarded to your email.

Method #3: Recover Messages From Instagram Server

Even though an unsent message is removed from both the sender and receiver’s chat boxes, it’s still stored on Instagram’s servers. So, you can retrieve months-old messages and see what was deleted.

Here is how to do it:

1. Open your Instagram app and tap on the three horizontal lines in the upper-right corner of your screen to open the menu.
2. Select “Settings” and then tap on the “Security” on the next page.
3. Scroll down and tap on “Download Data.”
4. On the next page, type your email address and “Request Download”.
5. You’ll receive an email from Instagram with a link to download your data. There will be three parts; download “Part 1” only because that contains your chat data.
6. Next, you’ll get redirected to Instagram to download data in a zip file.
7. Extract the files using any unzipping tool. Then open the ‘messages.json’ folder and view all your private conversations on Instagram, including the unsent ones.

Method #4: Recover Messages From Connected Facebook Account

If your Instagram account is linked with Facebook, all your messages are backed up on Facebook Messenger. So, just go to the Messenger app, open the conversation in question, and you’ll be able to view all your Instagram messages.

Method #5: Take Screenshots

It’s probably the oldest trick in the book but may not be the most efficient since it’d be too much work if you receive many messages. But if you ever doubt that a certain message will be unsent, take a screenshot and save it in your gallery forever.

Summary

There you have it, five ways to read unsent messages on Instagram. While some are more reliable than others, they all require a bit of effort to work.

So, install third-party apps to save Instagram notifications or connect your DMs to your email to ensure you don’t miss anything important next time. If you’re looking for already deleted messages, try to retrieve them from Instagram servers or Facebook Messenger. And of course, if nothing else suits you, there are always the tried and tested screenshots that save every time.

Frequently Asked Questions

Unfortunately, Instagram doesn’t notify or leave a message like Whatsapp when someone unsent a message. So the only way to know is by keeping track of your conversation.

There is no time limit; you can unsend a message anytime after sending it.

Once a message is unsent, it disappears from both the sender and receiver’s chatbox. So, there will be no way for the sender to know if you have read their message or not.

How to View Deleted Messages (Unsend) on Instagram in 2023

Direct messages on Instagram are not a thing if you asked me a 2 years ago, but now Instagram surprisingly improved the direct messaging system & I personally like it for the simplicity of the use since Whatsapp stuffs many things nowadays. And it’s very easy to view or recover deleted messages on Instagram.

Let’s say you deleted someone’s whole DM chat history mistakenly from your Instagram account or if someone sent you a message and then deleted it, either way, you can be able to recover those messages easily within a matter of time. 

What you can recover?

• Recover Instagram direct messages
• View deleted messages (unsend message)
• Even the very old chats can be recovered

Here, I will provide you with different ways to recover your deleted messages on Instagram.  

1. View deleted messages (unsend message)

There is an option on Instagram DM that lets you unsend the message by holding the message you want to delete, it deletes the message on both sides of your conversation.

Only the user sent the message will know what he sent unlike on Whatsapp shows something like “This message is deleted” and this annoys many people (especially people in relationships).

And there is no official way to view deleted messages on Instagram, but you can use some third-party notification log apps to keep an eye on the notifications all the time. Yes, whenever someone sends the message it will show up on the notification no matter what and the notification will eventually get deleted as soon as the sender deletes the message on Instagram.

Just follow the below steps to view deleted messages on Instagram DM

• Download and install the Notification History Log app on Android
• If you use iOS then install Pushover Notifications
• After that, simply give the necessary permissions that the app requires and enable the accessibility options
• That’s all, now whenever someone sends you anything on Instagram and unsends it, you might not be able to see that on Instagram, but you can use this notification history app to view the deleted messages.

Also read: How To Restore Disabled Instagram Account Back

2. Recover deleted direct messages on Instagram 

Similar to Facebook, Instagram also stores all the chats on the server. Hence even if you delete the chat on Instagram, you can still recover that deleted chat from the Instagram server. 

How to download deleted messages

• Open the Instagram app, then login with your account (that you want to recover the chat from)

• Navigate to your profile and tap on the top right corner, then go to Settings

• Now select Security then under Data and History, select Download Data

• Type in your email address (you can use any email) to receive the deleted chat data

• Once done, you should receive an email from Instagram within 5 minutes, open the email and click the Download Data

• You will be redirected to Instagram, from there you will be able to download a . zip file containing all of your chat histories

How to view deleted messages on Android

• On Android, you will need Zarchiever to unzip the downloaded file and Json Genie to view the deleted chats on your Instagram.
• After extracting the zip file, you need to open the messages.json file which contains all of your chat histories from the beginning.

How to view deleted messages on iOS

• If you’re using iPhone or iPad, the method is pretty similar to the android.
• You just need iZip to extract the zip file and JSON Designer to open the messages.json file.

If you’re using PC or Mac, you can simply unzip the file and open the messages.json file associated within that zip file

3. Recover Instagram messages from connected Facebook account

If you opened the Instagram account with Facebook or you connected your Instagram with Facebook, then you can view the deleted messages using the Facebook Inbox.

This method only works if you have connected your Instagram account with the Facebook account before you delete the messages. Otherwise, Download Data is the only possible way to view the deleted messages.

• Login to your Facebook
• Go to Facebook Inbox and on the left side, click on the Instagram Direct under Messages
• From there you will find all the deleted chats on Instagram

4. Online method to recover Instagram messages

I personally did not tried this method yet, but I’ve heard a lot of people got back there old deleted messages by using this method. But if you are lucky this will be the easiest way to recover the direct messages.

• Just go to this Instagram recovery website 
• Type in the Instagram username or profile URL and click Recover Messages

• Now, you need to solve any one of the human verification to get your deleted messages back (I prefer to download your content now, saves time)

Check out: How to View Instagram Photos Without Following Locked or Private

Final thoughts

All the above methods are applicable for both Android and iOS, by using those, you can easily recover or view any deleted direct messages on Instagram. If you face any troubles or have doubts, feel to ask in the comment below I will try my best to clear the out. Here are the best 4 ways to view deleted messages on Instagram in 2023.

How to read unsent messages on Instagram

Content:

Have you ever received an Instagram post notification only to have the post deleted or not sent later? We have all experienced this situation. Instagram allows its users to unsend messages, which means the message will be deleted from your inbox and the recipient's inbox. In fact, you can cancel a message sent to a user a year ago.