Here's How You Can Unsend Messages on Instagram — but, There's a Catch

Have you ever experienced a time where you were messaging someone and you pressed send on a message that made you feel uneasy? Or maybe your fingers were moving a little too fast and you accidentally sent the wrong emoji — making the tone of your whole message sound different. Or, you just did the classic, nightmare-inducing move that everyone's done at least once before and sent a message to the wrong person. Whenever any of these things happen, don't you wish you could just press unsend?

Well, Instagram Direct has that magical feature! Yep, you can literally unsend a message after you've sent it and it's glorious. Who would've thought this day would actually come?!

But (there's always a but), the feature may not be as perfect as it sounds... Keep on reading to learn more about how you can unsend Instagram messages.

Unsending a DM on Insta is actually quite easy and just takes a second. So, let's say that you sent a message that you want to take back — all you have to do is hold down the message and a series of options will come up. A collection of emojis will appear above, allowing you to add an emoji reaction to it. But, there will also be three other courses of actions that will pop up. They are: Reply, Unsend, and More. You will click Unsend and your desired message will be removed from the conversation.

It almost sounds too good to be true, right? With just a click of a button, a message that you wanted your receiver not to see or one that you just didn't want part of the chat anymore is just out of sight and out of mind... and your anxiety has been relieved. But it may not be that easy. 

If you unsend a message on Instagram, and the person you're sending it to has their notifications on, then they will be notified that you unsent a message from the exchange, reported Business Insider.

But, in the case that the person you sent the message to already read your message (you'll know if the word "Seen" is under the message you sent), they will be able to see that you decided to remove one of your messages from the conversation.

There were some misunderstandings with the feature though, and some people thought that when you unsent a message before the other person had seen it, there would be absolutely no way that they could see it... which as we can see is untrue.

Even though permanently removing a message doesn't necessarily mean your message will never be seen by the receiver, it's still definitely something that could come in handy. You won't have to worry about the other person screenshotting what you had said (if you unsend quick enough) or having to stare at a message you sent that you don't want existing anymore. Use it wisely though, friends!