How do I stop automations from interrupting when I'm chatting with someone?

Before you start

• Global must be On in Automation Controls. When Global is Off, this setting is greyed out (“Enable global first”).
• It’s off by default.

Steps

1. Click Account Settings in the sidebar.
2. Open the Automation tab.
3. Find Prevent In-Chat Trigger (“Skip triggers when you’re actively chatting with someone.”) and click Yes.
4. Set Messages to check (“Recent messages to scan for active chat.”): any number from 1 to 50. The default is 5.
5. Set Active window (“Skip trigger if you messaged within this window.”): 1 to 60 minutes. The default is 10.
6. Click Save at the top of Settings.

On the phone app

1. Tap your profile photo, then Settings.
2. Tap Automation (“Controls, in-chat, whitelist”).
3. Set Prevent In-Chat Trigger to Yes and adjust Messages to check and Active window.
4. Tap Save Changes.

What your followers see

If you’re chatting with someone and they send a keyword, they get no automatic reply. They only see your own messages. Once the window has passed with no message from you, automations can answer them again.

Good to know

How the check works, each time a DM trigger (or a Lead Gen or flow story-reply trigger) matches:

• InstantDM looks at the last few messages in that chat (your Messages to check number).
• If one of them was sent from your account within the Active window, the trigger is skipped. Nothing is sent and nothing is logged for you to resend.
• Messages your automations sent count as “from your account” too.

So with the defaults: if you replied to someone 6 minutes ago, their keyword is skipped. If you replied 15 minutes ago, it runs. If they’ve sent more than 5 messages since your last reply, your reply is out of view and the trigger runs.

It only checks new triggers. It doesn’t stop:

• comment-to-DM automations and public comment replies,
• story replies and shared posts answered by a Send Link or PDF automation,
• a person tapping a button in a message they already got,
• reminders and follow-ups already scheduled.

What you can’t do

• Use it for comments.
• Set it per automation. It’s one setting for the whole account.
• Use it as the way to pause an AI conversation. Use human takeover for that.

How to turn it off

Go to Account Settings → Automation, set Prevent In-Chat Trigger to No and click Save.

If it doesn’t work

• Automations still interrupt: raise Messages to check (for example to 10) or lengthen Active window.
• Automations stopped answering people they should answer: your automatic replies count too. Shorten Active window or set the setting to No.
• You never want a person to get automations: exclude them instead.
• More causes: why didn’t my automation send a DM?.