What do the switches in Account Settings > Automation do?

Steps

1. Click Account Settings in the left menu. A window titled “Settings” opens.
2. Click the Automation tab.
   • You’ll see the heading Automation Controls: “Toggle automations on or off at the account level.”
3. Change the switches you need (see below).
4. Click Save at the top right.

Automation Controls

Switch	What the screen says	What it really does
Global (On / Off)	“Master switch for all automations.”	Off stops every automation on this account: Send Link & PDF, Lead Gen, DM keyword replies, flows and AI replies. Changing Global also sets Comments and DMs to the same value.
Comments (On / Off)	“Comment reply automation.”	Off stops the public comment replies of Send Link & PDF automations. Their DMs still go out.
DMs (On / Off)	“DM reply automation.”	Off stops the DMs of Send Link & PDF automations. Their public replies still post.

While Global is Off, the other switches are greyed out with the hint “Enable global first”.

Comments and DMs do not affect Flow Automation, Lead Gen or DM keyword replies. To stop those, turn Global off, or switch off that one automation.

Prevent In-Chat Trigger

“Skip triggers when you’re actively chatting with someone.” Choose Yes or No. With Yes, two boxes appear:

• Messages to check: “Recent messages to scan for active chat.” From 1 to 50 (default 5).
• Active window: “Skip trigger if you messaged within this window.” From 1 to 60 minutes (default 10).

When a DM keyword or a story reply comes in, InstantDM looks at the last messages in that chat. If your account sent one of them within the window, the automation is skipped silently. Messages sent by your automations count too. It does not apply to comments or button taps.

Whitelist Contacts

“Whitelisted contacts won’t receive any Flow/Lead-gen/AI automation. Add usernames to exclude them from all flows.”

1. Type a username in Enter username (the @ is added for you).
2. Press Enter or click Add.
3. Click Save.

To remove someone, click the × on their name, then Save. A whitelisted person gets no automation at all, not only flows. Their pending follow-ups are cancelled. People you excluded from the Contacts page appear here as a number (for example “@1784…”). Remove that entry here to undo it.

On the phone app

Tap your profile photo → Settings → Automation (“Controls, in-chat, whitelist”). The switches are named Global Automation, Comment Replies and DM Replies. The app’s descriptions under them are different, but they do the same as on the web. Prevent In-Chat Trigger and Whitelist Contacts are on the same screen. Tap Save Changes (it appears after a change).

Good to know

• Turning Global back On also turns Comments and DMs on.
• Your automations and settings stay saved while switched off.
• Comments that arrive while Global is off are not answered later by themselves.

What you can’t do

• Pause only one post from here. Switch off that post’s automation instead. See turn off or edit an automation.
• Stop a flow with the Comments or DMs switch.
• Use Prevent In-Chat Trigger on comment automations.

If it doesn’t work

• Nothing runs at all: check that Global is On and click Save.
• The public reply posts but no DM: check that DMs is On.
• A friend never gets your automation: check they are not in Whitelist Contacts.