Connect Instagram direct messages

Connect Instagram to receive customer direct messages in the same Inbox as your other lines. A direct message, or DM, is a private conversation, not a public comment on a post.

Connecting the account and turning on the bot are separate steps. You can keep receiving messages for your team without letting the bot answer.

How it works

Connecting allows new customer DMs to reach omotto. Whether the bot answers depends on the bot controls; the incoming-message pause separately controls whether omotto receives new messages.

Availability: access is currently restricted

The Instagram connection screen currently shows omotto is still under review by Meta. Meta is the company behind Instagram, Facebook and WhatsApp. The notice says only Instagram accounts added in advance can connect right now.

Before starting, email hello@omotto.ai with the Instagram username you want to connect. Do not send your password. Do not assume every professional account can connect just because Connect Instagram is visible.

If the screen says Instagram has not been set up yet and there is no connection button, contact omotto support. There is nothing to paste into this screen to enable the connection yourself.

During setup, the connection page explains whether the Instagram line is set to answer customers. An incoming-message pause is separate from a bot-off setting. Follow the displayed action for that blocker; turning on Bot status does not resume incoming messages or enable a line whose own bot switch is off. See line status and the two bot switches. A ready line is not proof that any particular reply was delivered.

Where to find it

Open Settings → Chat services → Instagram → Connection. If Account and Comment campaigns tabs appear, choose Account. Guidance, when offered, is under Settings → Bot → Handbook → Where [bot name] communicates → With customers.

Set it up

Required: an eligible professional account, access to connect it and approval of Instagram’s requested permissions. New-message intake must not be paused if you want DMs to arrive in omotto.

Optional: test delivery from another account, set line guidance or enable automatic replies. Comment campaigns are a separate feature; connecting DMs does not require a campaign.

Before you connect

You need:

An Instagram professional account, either Business or Creator, with messaging turned on. A personal account is not enough. If you need to change the account type, use Instagram’s professional-account guide.
The ability to sign in to the Instagram account your customers should message and grant access to it.
Permission to manage chat connections in the correct omotto workspace. If the page is unavailable, ask the workspace owner to check your permissions.
Access arranged with omotto while the review notice is shown.

omotto uses direct Instagram sign-in. You do not need to link a Facebook Page for this connection. This differs from guides for other Instagram connection methods; see Meta’s description of Instagram Login.

Step 1: start the connection

Open the connection page described above.
Under Instagram DMs, choose Connect Instagram.

If an earlier connection attempt already exists, the button may say Reconnect instead. The sign-in process is the same. On a healthy Connected account, the page does not show a Reconnect button.

Sign in on Instagram with the professional account you want customers to message.
Read the access request.
Grant the requested access.
Complete the sign-in flow and return to omotto.

The request covers account information, messages and comments. Comment access is used by the separate Instagram comment campaigns feature; granting it does not create or start a campaign.

If you cancel or deny access, the connection is not completed. Start again from the button in omotto when you are ready. Use a fresh connection attempt rather than reopening an old sign-in link.

Check the connected account

Check that the page shows Connected.
Check the displayed @username. It must be the account your customers will write to.
If Resume is visible, choose it to allow new messages into omotto.

Optional: test a new DM

From a different Instagram account, send a new DM to the connected account.
Open omotto’s Inbox.
Find the new message.

For a staff-only test, turn off The bot answers on this line before sending the test DM. Your team can take over and reply while the reply window is open.

For a bot-reply test, first follow Try your bot and turn on customer replies. Both the business-wide Bot status and this line’s bot switch must allow replies. A takeover or manual timeout or Pause on suspected misuse can still prevent an automatic reply.

Connected is not proof that the bot is on, or that new messages are not paused. A fresh DM test is one way to check actual delivery if you want to test it.

Settings

Connection status and account details

The Account details appear while the connection is Connected. They are information, not settings you need to fill in.

On-screen name	Meaning	Starting value or action needed
Not connected	There is no completed connection. This also appears after disconnecting.	The initial state. Use Connect Instagram or Reconnect when available.
Connected	omotto completed sign-in and confirmed that Instagram registered message delivery for the account.	Check intake pause separately. A new-DM test is optional.
Error	A connection problem needs attention. The explanation appears below the status.	Read the error; reconnect if needed.
@username	The Instagram account currently connected.	Check it after every successful connection.
Instagram account ID	Instagram’s numeric identifier for the connected account. It is not the username customers search for.	Read-only; useful when contacting support.
Access renews automatically	The date shown is when the current access expires, not a date you must manually renew. Instagram access lasts 60 days; omotto renews it automatically during the week before expiry.	No routine action. If the connection shows Error, follow the error and reconnect.
Receiving	The kinds of updates Instagram recorded for this connection. `messages` means direct messages; `message_reactions` means reactions; `comments` means post comments. The displayed list reflects what Instagram actually accepted.	Read-only. A dash means there is no recorded list to display, not that new messages have been tested successfully.

A connection cannot finish as Connected unless Instagram confirms direct-message delivery. A missing optional reaction or comment entry does not, by itself, mean DMs cannot work. If a feature is missing, tell support what Receiving displays.

Bot on this line: keep messages without automatic replies

Under Bot on this line, The bot answers on this line starts on for a new line.

On: this line permits ordinary bot replies, provided the business-wide bot is live and the conversation is not held for a person or paused for that customer.
Off: new customer messages still arrive in the Inbox, and your team can reply. The bot does not answer ordinary customer messages on this line.
This switch does not stop reminders and confirmations. They remain subject to the normal channel and reply-window limits.

Changes save automatically. A newly created workspace starts with the business-wide customer bot paused, even though the line switch starts on. See going live for the shared Bot status card shown above the channel settings.

Pause new messages and Resume: arrivals are discarded

Pause new messages is a different control from bot-off. New connections are not paused by default.

When you pause:

New messages arriving for this connection are discarded by omotto.
They do not appear in the Inbox and are not answered.
They are not held in a queue for later.
The connection can still show Connected because you have not disconnected the account.
The warning Incoming messages are being ignored appears, and the button changes to Resume.

Choose Resume to receive messages arriving from that point onward. It does not recover messages discarded during the pause. Send another new test DM after resuming.

To let staff handle customers while the bot stays quiet, turn off the line’s bot switch instead. Do not use Pause new messages for that purpose. Pausing arrivals also does not stop the 24-hour reply clock on an existing conversation.

Bot guidance for Instagram

If the page links to the guidance area listed above, follow that link to edit Instagram guidance in the Handbook. Choose Show advanced options to see the channel-wide entry, Every Instagram account.

Depending on your access, the connection page may instead show Bot guidance on this channel with a Guidance field. If it is blank and hidden, choose Show advanced options. The matching Hide advanced options button only hides extra controls; it does not erase guidance. Advanced options start hidden and the display choice is remembered for your account. Existing nonblank guidance remains visible.

Guidance starts blank: there are no extra Instagram-only instructions.
Use it for channel-specific presentation, such as reply length, formatting or which links to include.
Guidance accepts at most 10,000 characters.
It applies to Instagram conversations, not all channels. Put general business behavior in the bot’s identity and language settings.
In the connection-page field, edits save automatically. Clear it to remove the extra guidance.
Editing bot guidance requires separate bot-settings permission; being allowed to connect Instagram does not necessarily let you edit guidance.

What to configure next

Choose only the options that fit what you want this feature to do.

Write the Instagram-only guidance described under Settings, and the shared knowledge and Handbook the bot answers from.
Plan around the 24-hour reply window described under What happens when.
Practice with a rehearsal, then turn on answers with the go-live guide.
If you want customers to comment a code on a post and receive a DM, see comment campaigns.
Decide who handles what the bot cannot: your Support Team and notifications.

What happens when…

The 24-hour reply window closes

For ordinary Instagram DMs in omotto, a customer’s message opens a 24-hour reply window. Each new customer message starts that window again. Sending a reply yourself does not extend it.

After the window closes:

Neither the bot nor staff can send an ordinary reply through omotto until the customer messages again.
Taking over does not reopen the window.
There is no WhatsApp-style approved template that reopens it on Instagram.
omotto does not currently enable Meta’s longer human-agent reply allowance. Do not plan on a seven-day staff reply window.

Meta documents messaging windows and possible exceptions in its Instagram messaging guide. Those exceptions do not expand the ordinary 24-hour window currently enforced by omotto. This is not a setting you can increase on the connection page.

Comment-triggered private replies follow a separate flow. See Instagram comment campaigns rather than treating them as an extension to an existing DM conversation.

You disconnect

Use Disconnect when you want to remove the connection, not just stop automatic bot replies.

Choose Disconnect.
Read Disconnect Instagram?.
Confirm with Disconnect.

omotto removes its saved access and stops using the account for this connection. The account is released so it can be connected to another omotto workspace. Existing conversation history is not deleted by this action. Connecting again requires a new Instagram sign-in.

Disconnect may also be available on an Error connection that still holds account access. You do not have to repair it first just to release it.

You reconnect or change the account

Signing in again to the same account without disconnecting first preserves an existing incoming-message pause. Reconnecting does not resume messages for you: choose Resume if you want new messages to arrive.

Disconnecting clears the pause. Connecting a different account also clears it. After either action, a connected account can receive new messages unless you pause it again.

If you are changing to a different Instagram account, old conversations are not moved to the new account. Queued replies for the previous account can fail, and old threads are not a way to reach those customers from the replacement account. Test with a new DM to the new username.

Troubleshooting

What you see	What to do
You cannot open Instagram settings.	Ask the workspace owner to check your chat-connection management permission and that you are in the right workspace.
The review notice is shown and Instagram refuses sign-in.	Contact hello@omotto.ai to arrange account access. A professional account alone is not enough during restricted access.
Instagram is not set up and the connection button is missing.	Contact omotto support. Do not look for a field to enter app credentials here.
Instagram access was not granted.	Start again from omotto and grant access on Instagram.
That connection link was invalid or has expired.	Start a fresh attempt from Connect Instagram or Reconnect. Do not reuse the old link or switch workspaces halfway through sign-in.
Instagram connected the account but did not enable message delivery.	Try connecting again. If it repeats, contact support with the username and the error shown.
This Instagram account is already connected to another omotto workspace.	Disconnect it in that workspace first. If you cannot access that workspace, contact support.
Could not reach Instagram — try again.	Let any current connection attempt finish, then retry from the page. Avoid starting several sign-ins at once.
Connected, but the test DM never reaches the Inbox.	Check the username and the pause warning. Choose Resume if offered, then send a fresh test DM. Check message access and permissions in Instagram; if it still fails, contact support with the displayed Receiving list.
The message reaches the Inbox, but the bot does not answer.	Check Bot status, The bot answers on this line, the reply window, and any human takeover or manual timeout or Pause on suspected misuse.
Access expired or was withdrawn.	Use Reconnect when shown and grant access again. Automatic renewal cannot restore access Instagram no longer permits.

For message-access checks, Meta’s account-side instructions describe Messages and story replies → Message controls → Connected Tools → Allow Access to Messages in Instagram settings. This is a setting on Instagram, not omotto. If those labels are not available in your account, contact support rather than following unrelated Facebook Page setup steps.

When contacting support, include the connected username, the visible connection status and error, whether the pause warning is shown, and when you sent the test DM. Do not send passwords or sign-in links.