Here's How To Filter Your Instagram Messages Once & For All

Sometimes DM slides are not always welcome, especially if a message contains harmful content or unkind words. Thankfully, though, there are several Instagram privacy hacks that’ll keep the trolls out of your DMs for good, so you can spend less time sorting through the negative Nancies and more time flirting with your crush. For a much more user-friendly experience, here’s what you need to know about how to filter your Instagram Messages.

IYDK, Instagram is filled with safety features to ensure users feel comfortable being their most authentic selves on the platform. The hidden words and advanced comment filtering tools, for example, allows users to set boundaries with others by creating a custom list of words, phrases, numbers, and even emojis that they want to keep out of their comments section. Meanwhile, the “Hide message requests” option helps keep the creeps at bay by filtering unwanted DMs out of your primary inbox and into the Hidden message request folder instead. But despite users having all these features at their disposal, that doesn’t always stop the haters from spreading negativity. When that happens, it’s time to kick things up a notch and place some restrictions on your Messages.

If you’re prone to people calling you names in the DMs, the first thing you’ll want to do is filter any offensive words, names, or phrases out of your Messages by using the same hidden words tool you’d use for comments. To do this, navigate to your profile, then tap the triple line icon in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Next, scroll down to the “How others can interact with you” section and tap “Hidden Words.” Here, you have the option to not only choose to hide certain comments on your posts or opt into advanced comment filtering, but you can also toggle on the “Hide Message requests” option to move offensive Messages into the hidden requests folder in your DMs as well.

To take your privacy a step further, you can add any words, terms, or emojis that you don’t want to see by tapping the “Manage custom words and phrases” option on that same page. To add a word, type it into the text box before tapping the blue “Add” button when finished. You can also add multiple words at one time by separating each one with a comma. After you’ve done that, you can toggle on the “Hide comments” and “Hide Message requests” options to filter your custom words out of your replies and DMs, too.

If you’re looking to keep the trolls out of your inbox altogether, there’s one last thing you can do. Navigate to the triple line icon on your profile, then tap “Settings and Privacy.” Next, scroll down to “How others can interact with you” again, and tap “Messages and Story replies.” Then, choose “Message Controls” before selecting “Your followers on Instagram.” From here, you can decide whether you want new Message requests to go to the Message requests folder or not. Keep in mind though, that if you choose “Don’t receive requests,” you won’t receive any requests at all, even if an account follows you.

Not all DMs are friendly, but once you filter out the negativity for good, your Messages are sure to be a safe space for flirting with your many situationships and sending memes to your besties once more.