How can I see hidden messages on Facebook?
Although this seems to be another one of those stories in which Mark Zuckerberg’s company performs one of its tricks, this time it is something they do for our good. As you may already know, this messaging service that incorporates Facebook allows us to get in immediate contact with someone even if they are on the other side of the world. You will simply receive a notification to the device where you are using it and you can reply to us.
Said user may be our friend or family member and we simply want to know how they are doing or ask them for any personal details. But of course, there are also many other users who use the Facebook Messenger service with claims of dubious reputation: selling us things, hacking accounts, harassing users who are not their friends and a long etcetera. For this reason, by and for our better user experience and security, let’s say this social network ‘Mute’ these messages and sends them to a kind of hidden folder. Something like a spam folder but without actually being one.
These messages have been accumulating there for days, months or even years. But of course, like all services that are performed automatically and without review by a natural person, this system can have errors. Therefore, you may find one or another in this hidden message box that really shouldn’t be here. So that friend who got mad at you because you hadn’t answered him, while you only knew how to tell him that you hadn’t received anything from him, he may be right.
In order to find this folder of messages that Facebook did not warn us about, we will have to follow one route or another depending on the device from which we want to access Messenger.
Hidden messages in Messenger from the browser
If you want to locate these messages through the browser (which can be Chrome, Safari, Opera or anyone) you will only have to follow these steps:
- Access your Facebook account as you normally would. As Messenger is a service that is included through the browser, you will not need to install anything new.
- Once inside, locate the Facebook Messenger icon in the upper right corner. Now press to enter it.
- Now you will see that all your old conversations from this service have been displayed. Above them, at the top, you will see different options, including the typical 3-point menu. Click on it.
- Here are different options that allow us to control the chat settings. Among them you will see one called “Message requests”. Enter here.
A new menu will be displayed automatically that you have probably never seen before. This window is that “hidden tray” of messages that Facebook had filtered to prevent malicious users from arriving through Messenger.
Hidden messages in Messenger from mobile
In case you want to access Messenger from mobile phone, the truth is that getting to this “hidden menu” is much simpler and more intuitive:
- Install the Facebook Messenger app on your phone and access it with your account on this social network.
- Now, once on the screen with all the conversations, click on the icon of your photo in the upper left corner. This will take you to the Messenger settings.
- Here, among the first options that appear, you have to locate “Message requests” and enter it.
With these simple steps you will have reached that tray in which Facebook hid some of the messages that reached you on Messenger. Now, surely, you are wondering what you can or should do with them. We show you that in the next section.
What to do with the “hidden messages” of Messenger?
Now, with each of these messages you can do different actions:
- If you look closely, just to the right of the name of the user who sends it to you, the time that has passed since he wrote you will appear.
- Then, if you move the mouse cursor close to each of them, the typical menu of settings or options of the three dots appears. Click on it to access.
- The first thing we see is the option of “Mark as unread”. This, if we activate it, will make the text of this conversation is marked in blue and, in addition, a dot of the same color appears to its right. The reason we do not receive any notification from Facebook Messenger regarding these messages is because, automatically, the platform detects them as read and stores them in this somewhat hidden folder. So, if this was really an important message but at this moment you cannot attend to it.
- We can also see in second place the option to “Open in Messenger”. If you have located a message that really should not be identified as spam, you only have to click here to automatically send it to Messenger to continue talking with this person.
- However, if this user doesn’t sound like anything to you and you want to gossip a bit before responding to a stranger lightly, that’s what the “View profile” option is for. An action that, as its name suggests, will directly reach the profile of this user.
In the event that we identify that this message is from a complete stranger, it arrives with dubious intentions or it has been sent to us by mistake, what you should do is:
- Click on the conversation to open it.
- Now, next to the name of that user, click on the down arrow to display the “chat settings”. Yes, some new configurations / options different from the previous ones.
- In this section you can, again, send the chat to Messenger normally if you wish.
- If it is a message from someone who is bothering us, we can “Block” it with the second option.
- The third alternative that Facebook Messenger shows us is “Delete the chat” so that it disappears completely.
- And finally, in the event that we want to report the conversation or report an error, we will have to click on «An error has occurred».
