instagram-dm-unsender (idmu)

Userscript that allows you to mass unsend all your DMs on Instagram

As of 2023 instagram.com doesn't allow batch unsending of messages which is why this project came to be.

The userscript allows a user to batch unsend DMs in a thread on the web version of instagram.com

⚠️ Only English is supported as of yet so please set your UI language to English before running the script.

⚠️ This might not work

Use cases

Individuals seeking to transition to something like Fediverse and want to "remove" their messages from Meta's database.

What's the difference between deleting and unsending?

Deleting a thread will only delete messages on your end but the other party will still be able to read your messages.

On the other hand, unsending of a thread will result in the deletion of messages on both ends, rendering the other party unable to read your messages.

How does it work / How can I use it?

This script is meant to be run on the page that lists the message threads.

⚠️ The UI will only appear once you select a message thread

This showcases a very simple case where two users are logged to instagram using two distinct browser windows, the user on the right side is the one that's unsending its messages, as you can see, they are removed as well for the user on the left side.

The way it works is as follow:

1. Load all the pages in the thread.

2. Once the pages are loaded, scroll until a message is visible. This is because Instagram hides messages as you scroll so that those outside of the viewport are actually hidden.

3. Once the first visible message is found, that is once certain steps are met, run the following workflow on the message:

   1. Show action menu button: Dispatch a mouseover for this message so that the three dots button appears.

   2. Open action menu: Click the three dots button to open the message actions.

   3. Open unsend confirm modal: Click the "Unsend" action button, a modal will open with a dialog that asks the user to confirm the intent.

   4. Click "confirm": Click the "confirm" button inside the modal.

There is no concurrency. Messages are unsent one after the other by using a queue.

Any of these can go wrong for various reasons, so if you're having an issue make sure to explain the particular of the message thread your trying to unsend is (without divulging any personal information please).

⚠️ Instagram has rate limits. After a certain number of messages, you might get blocked from unsending another message for a period of time.

Installing

Install a Userscript manager for your browser :

• Firefox
• Chrome

Finally, install the userscript from OpenUserJS :

Install latest stable release

Install development (master) version

Older releases

Development

I recommend using Violentmonkey or something similar and enabling userscript autoreloading as explained here : https://violentmonkey.github.io/posts/how-to-edit-scripts-with-your-favorite-editor/

Install dependencies:

• npm install

To both serve and build with autoreloading:

• npm start

This will also start an HTTP server and allow autoreloading of the userscript as changes are made.

You can also do a one-time build with:

• npm run build

The script will build to dist/idmu.user.js by default.

This might not work

Instagram web app is serving different UIs, probably based on the user location. Yours might not be supported

Link to the issue : #1

Testing

Please do set the NODE_NO_WARNINGS=1 to disable punycode deprecation warnings.

Use the DEBUG=idmu:test env to enable debug logs while testing.

Lint files:

• npm run lint:ecmascript

Run test with ava:

• npm test

Coverage:

• npm run test:coverage

🧒 Contributions

Contributions are more than welcome.

👾 Bug report

❗Please search the existing issues and make sure the bug has not already been reported before making a new one.

To report a bug please use this link.

💡 Feature request

❗Make sure your suggestion is not already on the TODO.md and hasn't already been requested.

To suggest an idea please use this link.