How Long does Instagram Keep Private Messages?
You might have been wondering just how long does Instagram keep private messages, it’s totally okay to need this information as it would help you understand why your messages can’t be seen again.
Most people might think that their Private messages will be deleted after a while.
The truth is if you do not delete them yourself or delete your account your private messages can stay on the app for as long as you want.
However, there are factors that might cause you to not see your private messages, You might have either deleted them accidentally, archived them, or due to a fault in your device, your messages can be totally wiped.
How Long does Instagram Keep your Messages?
The answer to this question is basically forever, unless you unsend a particular message, and delete the conversation thread, your Instagram private message are still intact.
Even though you delete your part of the chat thread, the receiver still has a copy of it and it is their choice to delete it.
Although, the company says it takes around 90 days to completely remove data.
But security researchers have discovered that this might not be true because they found similar issues with other apps in the past Like Twitter, which retained the private messages between users for years after they claimed it was deleted.
How do you See Old Messages on Instagram?
To be able to see your old messages on Instagram, you need to go to the Direct Messages (DM) icon, and you can find this at the top right corner of your Instagram homepage.
When you get there, all you need to do is use the search bar at the top of the Direct Messages page to search for old messages by username, hashtag, or keyword for the particular message you are looking for.
If you searching for messages from your friend, you can simply type their name into the search bar to bring up any of the conversations that you have already had with the person. Click on the conversation to open and view the messages.
But if you searching for conversations from a specific hashtag or keyword, you can still use the search bar.
If you are active on Instagram, your old messages can get buried under the new ones, so it is advisable that you archive some conversations this would help you keep track of important messages.