Inbox and conversations

AvailableChecked against the product on September 14, 2026

Conversations shows every Instagram DM thread of the workspace: messages people send, replies your automations send, and messages you send from ChatPeak or the Instagram app. New messages appear without reloading. The line under the heading says Live while the connection is up.

Find a conversation

  • Filters

    All, Unread, Mine for conversations assigned to you, and Unassigned.

  • Search

    Matches the contact's name, the last message and the contact's tags.

  • Archived

    The archive button next to the heading switches to archived conversations and back.

Opening a conversation marks it as read. On a phone, the list and the open conversation take turns on the screen.

Read a conversation

  • Automated replies

    Carry an Auto reply badge. A private reply shows the comment it answered.

  • Story replies

    Show "Replied to your story" above the message.

  • Photos, videos and files

    Photos open in a large view, videos play in the thread and files can be downloaded. ChatPeak keeps a copy of what people send, because Instagram's own links expire.

  • Voice messages

    Play in the thread with a waveform you can click to jump, and speeds of 1x, 1.5x and 2x.

  • Shared posts, reels and story mentions

    Shared posts and reels link out to Instagram. A story mention shows the story only while Instagram still provides it, because Meta does not allow storing story media.

Reply

Type in the box at the bottom and press Enter or select Send. Shift and Enter together start a new line. Replies go out through the Instagram account the conversation belongs to, which has to be connected.

To send a file, select the paperclip, paste it or drop it on the box. One file goes with each reply, and a file and text go out as two messages, the file first.

TypeFormatsUp to
ImagePNG, JPEG8 MB
VideoMP4, MOV, WebM, OGG, AVI25 MB
AudioAAC, M4A, WAV25 MB
FilePDF25 MB

What Instagram accepts from the inbox.

Instagram's reply windows

Since the person's last messageWhat you can send
Less than 24 hoursAny reply, and automations can message them too.
24 hours to 7 daysOnly replies you write yourself. ChatPeak sends them as human agent replies, and the composer says so.
More than 7 daysNothing until the person writes again.

Automations never use human agent replies, and replies you write in the inbox do not count toward your plan. Background in staying inside Instagram's messaging limits.

Message a contact

The Message a contact button next to the heading lists your conversations, searchable by name or handle, and says for each person whether you can message them now, only with a personal reply, or not at all. Instagram never lets a business write first, so someone who has not written to you, such as a commenter who only got a private reply, cannot be messaged yet.

Assign, tag and archive

  • Assign

    Assign in the conversation header hands the conversation to yourself or another workspace member, or back to unassigned.

  • Tag

    On wide screens, the panel on the right shows the contact's tags. Tag adds typed tags or ones the workspace already uses, up to 20 per contact, and each tag can be removed there. These are the same tags flows use.

  • Archive

    Archive moves the conversation out of the inbox. It comes back on its own when the contact writes again.

AI drafts

When AI drafts are set up for ChatPeak, the composer shows an AI draft button. It writes a suggested reply from the conversation's latest 20 messages with Anthropic's Claude and puts it in the text box. Nothing is sent until you edit or accept it and select Send. A workspace can request a limited number of drafts per minute.

Tips for handing conversations from a flow to a person are in building a DM flow that hands off to a human.