How to check inbox on Facebook on iPhone

Users have discovered hundreds of messages locked in a hidden inbox within Facebook’s messaging system.

Table of Contents Show

Viewing Your Facebook Inbox
How do I see Facebook messages on my iPhone?
Is Messenger and inbox the same?
Why can't I see my inbox messages on Facebook?

The inbox, accessible on the web or Facebook Messenger apps for smartphones and tablets, is part of Facebook’s filtering system, designed to catch spam and other unwanted messages.

However, users, including myself and others within the Guardian, have discovered their “filtered” inbox full of legitimate messages that never made it to the main inbox or Messenger app.

The simplest way to access the inbox is to navigate to facebook.com/messages/other on the desktop.

The filtered messages inbox can be found in the iPhone Facebook Messenger app, or via Facebook’s mobile site. Photograph: Samuel Gibbs/The Guardian

Within the Messenger app the hidden inbox is buried under four menus. To get to it tap Settings, then People, then Message Requests and tap on the “See filtered requests” link.

The filtered messages include anything attempting to send you messages that you have manually filtered out as unwanted, as well as messages from people who are not connected with you on Facebook. I discovered some tens of messages dating back as far as 2008.

Most of the time you can safely ignore it - Facebook built the system to stop messages you want to see being sent to spam – but it can also trap messages such as those informing you of a friend’s death or a story tip that ends up in filtered and hidden from your Facebook-obsessed eyes. Even for MPs.

Eek! Just looked at the 'filtered' message thing on Facebook and seen there are literally thousands of messages... https://t.co/LSKyFcWN7f

— stellacreasy (@stellacreasy) April 7, 2016

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Viewing Your Facebook Inbox

If you have private messages from other users, they'll show up in your Facebook inbox. You access the inbox on your iPhone by tapping the Menu button to go to the applications screen and then tapping the Inbox icon.

To view messages from your friends, tap the Messages button at the bottom of the inbox screen. Messages are grouped by sender. To view all messages (including chats) from a given user, tap that person's name.

The inbox also displays other information. To view notifications from pages you've liked, tap the Other button at the bottom of the inbox screen. To see which of your friends are currently online, tap the Online button.

How do I see Facebook messages on my iPhone?

On iPhone and iPad Open a browser like Safari or Chrome and go to www.facebook.com. Log in with your credentials and tap the Messenger icon at the screen's top. You will then see your messages and a search field to type in what you're looking for. You can tap a chat to open it.

Is Messenger and inbox the same?

For starters, the previous inbox icon has been replaced with the Messenger icon in the blue navigation bar at the top of the screen. When clicked, you're taken to a revamped inbox that looks like what you'd see if you had visited Messenger.com directly.

Why can't I see my inbox messages on Facebook?

Check for Achieved or Ignored the chat As you know you can ignore or archive chats on the Messenger app. So, if accidentally or intentionally you have archived or ignored some chats then you may not be able to see the messages from those chats in your inbox, you need to remove chats from the archive option.