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Channels → Instagram → Comments is a triage desk for everything people have written under your posts. A dense list on the left answers “what needs me next”; the pane on the right holds everything you need to decide what to say. Comments are deliberately not in the Inbox. They are public, attached to a post, and have no thread. A private reply is the bridge — it opens a real DM thread, and that thread does appear in the Inbox.

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The tabs

Each tab carries its own count.

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Narrowing the list

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Smart filters

Four chips sit under the toolbar, each with a count. Two things worth knowing about them. They combine with or, not and: ticking several widens the list rather than narrowing it to the intersection, which would return nothing almost always. And they filter the comments already loaded, not the whole queue — the count line says so (12 of 80 loaded match).
No filter here guesses at sentiment. Each one is either a plain fact about the row or a keyword match you can predict, because misreading one line of mixed-language text with three emoji in it costs a real customer.

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Working a comment

Selecting a row opens it in the pane. You see the post it is on, the comment, any replies already posted under it, whether a comment funnel has already answered it, and — when the DM deadline is close — how many hours are left. The composer is always open, with two modes:
  • Reply publicly — posted under the comment, visible to everyone reading it. Up to 2,200 characters.
  • Send a DM — a private reply, which opens a DM thread with the commenter. The thread appears in the Inbox and the pane links straight to it.
Beside them are Hide / Unhide and a delete button.
Deleting removes the comment from Instagram for everyone and cannot be undone. To take something out of public view reversibly, hide it instead. Both actions are confirmed first.

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When the DM option is unavailable

Send a DM is disabled, with the reason written underneath, when:
  • a private reply has already been sent — Instagram allows only one per comment;
  • a comment funnel used that one private reply, and it names the funnel;
  • the comment is more than 7 days old.
All three are permanent for that comment, which is why the button is disabled rather than letting you write a message that will be refused.

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Quick replies

Under the composer are saved wordings you can drop in with one click. Press Save to keep whatever you have typed, up to 12. These are yours, in this browser — they are typing shortcuts, not a workspace setting, and they are not shared with the rest of the team. For team-wide saved messages see Canned replies.

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Keyboard shortcuts

The queue is built to be worked without the mouse. Press ? for this list in the app. Moving the cursor opens the comment, so j walks the queue and reads each one.

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Bulk actions

Tick rows with the checkbox or with x. The bar above the list then offers: A selection is dropped when the rows leave the screen, so a filter change can never act on comments you cannot see.

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Comments deleted on Instagram

Instagram sends no notification when somebody deletes their own comment. Watx can only learn about it on the next sync — so a comment removed in the app stays in the queue until then, and any action on it reports that it no longer exists and clears it out. Sync backlog and Sync comments reconcile this: the toast says how many were found deleted on Instagram. If you are seeing “that comment no longer exists” errors, a sync is the fix.

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On a phone

The pane is a full-width sheet over the list rather than a second column, the filter rows scroll sideways instead of wrapping, and the bulk buttons become icons. Everything else behaves the same.