You can unsend a message on Instagram by opening the chat, long-pressing the message, and tapping Unsend. Once you do that, the message disappears for everyone in the conversation.

If you’re seeing the notice “You turned off disappearing messages,” that usually means the chat was in vanish/disappearing mode and it has been turned off. Instagram says you can turn disappearing messages off by swiping up in the chat , and you can turn them back on the same way.

What to do

  1. Open Instagram and go to your DMs.
  2. Open the chat in question.
  3. Long-press the message you want removed.
  4. Tap Unsend.
  1. If the issue is about disappearing messages, open that chat and swipe up to toggle the setting again.

Important note

  • Delete removes the message only from your side.
  • Unsend removes it for both sides.
  • If the other person has already seen it, unsending still removes it from the chat, but it may not erase the fact that they saw it.

Quick Scoop

The message you’re asking about is usually a setting issue, not a bug : Instagram’s disappearing messages feature was turned off, and the fix is to swipe up in the chat or use the chat’s disappearing-message setting again.

TL;DR: Long-press the message and tap Unsend ; if the chat says disappearing messages were turned off, swipe up in that chat to turn them back on.