Instagram limited my account. What should I do?

What it means

What you see	What it means
Email “Instagram temporarily limited your account”, and rows marked Message rejected in Automation Recovery	Instagram has stopped your account from sending DMs for a while. The email says this usually follows too many messages sent too fast.
Email “Instagram blocked link sharing in DMs”	Instagram is blocking links in your DMs. The email says this is usually temporary and linked to Community Standards.
Instagram limit reached on comments in a post’s All Comments tab	Instagram asked your account to slow down. This is a rate limit, not a restriction. InstantDM waits for your Rate Limit Retry time and tries again by itself.

Steps

1. Turn your automations off. Click Account Settings → Automation, set Global to Off, and click Save. Do this even if an email says your automations were paused.
2. Open the Instagram app and check Account Status. Follow what Instagram tells you there.
3. Wait until Instagram lifts the limit. InstantDM can’t shorten or remove it.
4. Before you restart, lower Automations / Hour in Account Settings → Safety & Limits, and click Save.
5. If links were blocked, send your link as a Button DM (Legend Pro and above) instead of plain text. The email notes that button links may still work.
6. Set Global back to On and click Save. This also turns Comments and DMs back on.
7. Resend only the DMs that matter from Automation Recovery → Missed & Failed. Each resend is a real message, and old ones can’t be sent (7 days for comments, 24 hours for messages).

On the phone app

• Pause: tap your profile photo → Settings → Automation → switch Global Automation off → Save Changes.
• Slow down: Settings → Safety & Limits → Automations / Hour → Save Changes.
• Resend: Home → Automation Recovery → Missed & Failed.

Good to know

• InstantDM pauses by itself only for Instagram’s “sending too fast” error, using your Rate Limit Retry time. It does not pause for a restriction.
• While Global is off, your automations, settings and plan stay as they are.
• Things that can help afterwards: a moderate hourly pace, several different public replies, and the Welcome Message or Reply Delay (Legend Pro and above). None of these is a guarantee.

What you can’t do

• Lift, shorten or appeal a restriction through InstantDM.
• Make InstantDM send through a restriction.
• Resend DMs after Instagram’s 7-day (comments) or 24-hour (messages) window.

If it doesn’t work

• Everything still shows Message rejected after you restart: the restriction may still be active. Turn Global off again and check Account Status in Instagram.
• You see the red banner “Instagram conection expired! Automation Stopped.”: that is a different problem. See reconnect Instagram.
• Other warning emails: see InstantDM’s warning emails.