Are your Instagram messages deleted automatically?
Do your messages disappear after you send them even though you didn’t delete them?
Are your old chats gone and you can’t find them?
Bugs and glitches like these happen all the time on Instagram.
In most cases, they happen because you’ve recently updated Instagram.
In this guide, you’ll learn why your Instagram messages delete automatically and how to fix them.
- Why do my Instagram messages delete automatically?
- How to fix Instagram messages deleted automatically
Why do my Instagram messages delete automatically?
Your Instagram messages delete automatically because either you or the other person turned on vanish mode.
Vanish mode allows you to send disappearing messages, photos, and videos.
You can enable it if you’ve updated the messaging feature on Instagram.
When you send a message in vanish mode, it will disappear when you leave the chat.
Automatically deleted messages can also be due to a bug in the app.
The bug is most likely caused by the latest Instagram update.
If so, there will be a follow-up update to fix it, so you’ll have to wait for it to be released.
How to fix Instagram messages deleted automatically
To fix Instagram messages deleted automatically, you need to turn off vanish mode.
If Instagram is down, you can either wait for 24 to 48 hours, update the app, or uninstall and reinstall it.
Unfortunately, if the other person turned on vanish mode, you won’t be able to stop your messages from getting deleted.
Instead, the person needs to turn off vanish mode to retain yours and their messages.
1. Turn off vanish mode
- Open Instagram and go to your profile.
- Tap on the message icon.
- Navigate to the chat.
- Tap on the info icon.
- Turn off “Vanish mode”.
After you’ve turned off “Vanish mode” your messages will not be automatically deleted.
However, if the other person turned on “Vanish mode”, your messages will not be automatically deleted.
Hence, you need to ask them to turn off “Vanish mode” too.
2. Check if Instagram is down
If turning off vanish mode does not fix your messages from getting automatically deleted, you need to check if Instagram is down.
The first way to check if Instagram is down is to visit DownDetector.
Once you’re on DownDetector, search for “Instagram” and view the graph.
If the graph has a huge spike, it means that Instagram is probably down for everyone and not just you.
The second way to check if Instagram is down is to visit Twitter and search for “Instagram down”.
You can also search for the issue that you’re experiencing.
After you’ve carried out the search, check the “Top” and “Latest” tweets.
If there are a lot of tweets about “Instagram down”, it means that there’s most likely an outage.
3. Wait for 24 to 48 hours
Some errors on Instagram will be automatically fixed after some time.
Hence, it’s recommended that you wait for 24 to 48 hours to see if your messages are working again.
If it’s a server error, Instagram’s engineers can take a day or two to fix it.
In other words, you don’t have to do anything to fix the issue but wait it out.
4. Update Instagram
The final method to fix Instagram messages from getting deleted automatically is to update Instagram to the latest version.
If you’ve recently updated Instagram, it might have come with some bugs.
If that’s the case, Instagram will usually release a follow-up update to fix those bugs.
Hence, you need to check if there’s an update for Instagram on the App Store or Google Play Store.
Under “What’s New”, you’ll see a summary of the update.
If it says, “The latest version contains bug fixes and performance improvements”, it might be meant to fix the message bug.
Hence, you need to update the app as soon as possible.
Alternatively, you can uninstall and reinstall the app to clear its cache.
When you uninstall and reinstall Instagram, it will also be updated to the latest version.
If the app does not have a new update, you need to wait for one.
