Take over a conversation

Take over from Auto Reply

Open Conversations, choose a conversation and take over. Automatic direct messages stop for that conversation until it resumes. Public replies are not affected.

When a conversation pauses by itself

If a message appears that Auto Reply did not send, for example when you reply from the Instagram app, the conversation pauses so we don’t talk over you.

A message that appears before the person has written anything doesn’t pause it. That is how greetings from message ads arrive.

Messages sent by the platform

Instant replies, away messages and ad greetings come from the platform itself. If the same outside text shows up in 3 or more conversations, we ask whether it is an automatic message. Confirm it and it stops pausing conversations. We also suggest turning that built-in reply off, so people don’t get two.

Resuming

You choose how a paused conversation resumes:

• 24 hours after the last outside message. This is the default.
• When you resume it yourself.
• Only when you resume it, however long that takes.

While a conversation is paused, new messages from the person are treated as handled by you. They aren’t replayed later and they don’t count as executions.