Messages

Instagram direct messages, on $instagram->messages(). Needs the instagram_business_manage_messages permission.

Meta only lets you message a user inside the 24 hour window after their last message to you, unless you are using an approved message tag.

Read a message

$message = $instagram->messages()->get($messageId);

// ['message' => 'Hi', 'from' => [...], 'created_time' => '...', 'id' => '...']

message, from, created_time and attachments come back by default:

$instagram->messages()->get($messageId, ['message', 'from']);

Send text

$instagram->messages()->sendText($userId, 'Hello there');

// ['recipient_id' => '17841400000000000', 'message_id' => 'aWdfZAG1...']

$userId is the Instagram-scoped ID of the person, which you get from a webhook event or from the from field of a message.

Send media

use Amirsarhang\AttachmentType;

$instagram->messages()->sendMedia($userId, 'https://example.com/photo.jpg');

$instagram->messages()->sendMedia(
    $userId,
    'https://example.com/clip.mp4',
    AttachmentType::VIDEO,
);

AttachmentType holds the values Instagram accepts: IMAGE, VIDEO and AUDIO. The parameter is a plain string, so 'video' and AttachmentType::VIDEO are interchangeable; the constants just save you guessing the spelling.

The URL must be publicly reachable — Instagram fetches the file itself, so signed URLs that expire quickly or hosts behind a firewall will fail.