How to Send Instagram DMs From Your Desktop

Have you ever wished that you could reply to Instagram DMs from your desktop?

Well, your wish has finally been answered: Instagram is officially bringing direct messages to the web!

Replying to Instagram DM’s from desktop is now live for all users globally, so you can ditch the small screen and respond to your customers from your computer or your phone.

Here’s everything you need to know about sending Instagram DMs from your desktop:

How to Send Instagram DMs on Desktop

The direct message experience on desktop is pretty much the exact same as it is on mobile, so there shouldn’t be much of a learning curve.

To start, head to your home feed on Instagram’s website and tap the DM button at the top of your screen (note: if you don’t see the button, you probably don’t have access to the feature yet!).

From here, you can view your whole inbox, start one-on-one messages and group chats, send photos (but not capture them), double-click to like messages, and more.

You can also share posts, Instagram Stories, and IGTV videos as a direct message. Just tap the DM button below the post or story you’d like to share.

You can then search for the person or group you’d like to send the post to (up to 32 people).

The accounts you follow also have a new “Message” button next to their name.

There are some limitations, however! At the moment, you’re still unable to video chat via Instagram, which you can do through DMs on the mobile app.

This feature is now available to all Instagram users globally, no Creator Studio or special access required:

What Instagram’s New Desktop DMs Means for Businesses

Receiving a healthy influx of direct messages on Instagram is a great indication that your audience is engaged with your brand and the content that you’re posting.

But it can also be pretty stressful — especially if you’re managing everything from the Instagram mobile app (it’s just a little limiting to do everything from the app!).

As such, the new feature should be *very* useful for businesses, influencers, and anyone else who sends and receives a lot of DMs.

There are some concerns, however. According to Tech Crunch, the new feature may contradict Facebook’s plan for end-to-end encryption in all its messaging apps.

This is fascinating, as it cuts directly against the announced goal of E2E encrypted compatibility between FB/IG/WA. Nobody has ever built a trustworthy web-based E2EE messenger, and I was expecting them to drop web support in FB Messenger. Right hand versus left?

— Alex Stamos (@alexstamos) January 14, 2020

Regardless of potential security risks, we know that users are going to love the ability to manage their DMs from the web!

Manage All of Your Instagram Marketing from Desktop

It’s not just Instagram DM’s that you can manage from the comfort of your computer – did you know that you can plan the look of your feed, schedule posts and stories, collect user-generated comment, respond to Instagram comments, and so much more?

Later is a free and full desktop solution for managing all of your Instagram content in one place!

Write your captions on your computer (and keep the line breaks) while scheduling a week’s worth of Instagram content – all for free with Later: