Instagram DMs (direct message) requests can be overloaded at times.
On other occasions, they can be unsolicited, annoying, or rude.
If you’re receiving too many message requests on Instagram, you might want to turn them off.
This is to mitigate the need of going through your message requests, which can take up a lot of time.
Just a heads up—currently, the vast majority of the answers on Google are misleading as they only teach you how to turn off DM notifications and not the actual DM requests.
In this guide, you’ll learn how to disable the actual DM requests on Instagram in 4 easy steps.
By implementing the steps, you will no longer receive message requests from other people on Instagram.
- How to disable DMs on Instagram
- What happens if I turn off message requests on Instagram?
- How do I change my DM settings on Instagram?
How to disable DMs on Instagram
To disable DMs (direct messages) on Instagram, go to your settings, tap on “Privacy”, navigate to messages, tap on “Others on Instagram”, and select “Don’t receive requests”.
After you’ve selected “Don’t receive requests”, you won’t receive message requests from people that you’re not following.
If you’re just turning off push notifications for your direct messages, you will still receive message requests.
However, if you selected “Don’t receive requests” from your message control settings, it will completely prevent others from sending DMs to you.
Hence, you should not turn off push notifications as it is redundant.
Instead, turn off your message requests by modifying them in your privacy settings.
A lot of Instagram users are unaware that the message controls exist, so they have no clue on how to turn off their message requests.
Follow the steps below to disable your DMs.
Step #1: Go to your Settings & tap on “Privacy”
Open Instagram > Profile > Menu > Settings > Privacy.
In order to disable your DMs, you need to do so in your Instagram settings.
Firstly, open Instagram and go to your profile.
On the top-right of your profile, tap on the menu icon.
After you tapped on the menu, a navigation drawer will be opened.
Tap on “Settings” on the first tab of the drawer to go to your settings.
Once you’re on the settings page, tap on “Privacy” (the sixth tab from the top of the page).
Avoid going to the “Notifications” tab as it will not disable your DMs.
However, if you want to stop receiving post notifications for messages, you can disable it there.
Otherwise, you don’t have to change its settings.
Step #2: Navigate to messages
Interactions > Messages.
Once you’re on the privacy page, you’ll be able to change your privacy settings such as interactions and connections.
Under “Interactions”, you’ll see a lot of tabs—comments, tabs, mentions, and so on.
The tab that you’ll want to be opening is the “Messages” tab.
Tap on “Messages” to access your message control settings.
Step #3: Tap on “Others on Instagram”
Message controls > Other people > Others on Instagram.
The “Message controls” page is where the magic happens.
On there, you can change the folder that you’ll receive message requests to, or whether to receive them at all.
Under “Potential connections”, you can change the folder that you’ll receive message requests to from your followers, people who’ve chatted with your Facebook page, and people who’ve liked or followed it.
You can also change the folder that you’ll receive message requests to from “Others on Instagram” (people that you’re not following) and Facebook.
That is the setting that you’ll want to be changing.
Under the “Other People” heading, tap on “Others on Instagram”.
“Others on Instagram” refers to the people that you’re not following on Instagram.
If you want to turn off DM requests from people that you’re not following, that is the setting that you’ll want to change.
Step #4: Select “Don’t receive requests”
Deliver requests to > Don’t receive requests.
The final step is to select the “Don’t receive requests” option.
After you’ve selected it, you will no longer receive message requests from people that you’re not following on Instagram.
If you want to disable DM requests from your followers as well, go back to the previous step and select the “Don’t receive requests” option for all settings.
For example, if you don’t want to receive message requests from your followers on Instagram, tap on your “Followers on Instagram” and select the “Don’t receive requests” option.
Repeat this for all other categories (e.g. People who’ve chatted with your page on Facebook, people who like or follow your page on Facebook) if you want to completely disable DMs.
Congrats, you’ve successfully disabled DMs (direct messages) on Instagram.
From now on, you won’t receive message requests from the group of people that you’ve chosen (e.g. people that you’re not following).
If you want to enable message requests again, you can change the setting from “Don’t receive requests” to “Message requests” at any time.
What happens if I turn off message requests on Instagram?
If you turned off message requests on Instagram under “Notifications”, you’ll stop receiving push notifications for message requests.
On the other hand, if you turned off message requests on Instagram on the message control settings, you won’t receive message requests from others.
A misconception is that turning off message requests on the notification settings will disable message requests.
Message requests will only be disabled if you changed the setting from “Message requests” to “Don’t receive requests” on the message control settings and not the notification settings.
How do I change my DM settings on Instagram?
Here’s how you can change your DM settings on Instagram:
- Go to your Instagram profile.
- Tap on the menu on the top-right of your profile.
- Tap on “Settings”.
- Select “Privacy”.
- Under “Interactions”, tap on “Messages”.
- Under “Other people”, tap on “Others on Instagram”.
- Select the “Don’t receive requests” option to stop receiving message requests from people that you’re not following.
On the message controls page, you can change the folder that you’ll receive message requests to.
You can also choose to stop receiving message requests entirely by selecting the “Don’t receive requests” option under each category.
Conclusion
Direct messaging is an integral part of Instagram’s social features.
It allows seamless communication between two parties or even a group.
But when there are too many message requests, it can be difficult to keep track of them.
Hence, controlling your DMs on Instagram is important to restrict your message requests.
Further Reading
Instagram DM not Working? Here’s How to Fix It
Why Did My Instagram Message Requests Disappear?
How to Make a Website like Twitter (5 Easy Steps)
Lim How Wei is the founder of Followchain. Feel free to follow him on Instagram.
