Comments Screen Guide: Manage Hundreds of Comments in One Place

The Comments screen collects the comments on your Instagram and Facebook posts in one list. It separates the ones waiting for a reply and lets you filter, reply with templates and take bulk actions. Open it from the Comments link in the left menu of the panel.

This guide walks through the parts of the screen, the features you'll use day to day and how it works together with comment automation.

Screen layout

On desktop the screen has three columns.

The left column sets where you're looking. It has three tabs:

• Latest comments: the newest comments on your accounts.
• Posts: your posts that have comments. Posts with comments waiting for a reply sit under New comments, and the ones you opened recently sit under Recently opened.
• All posts: every post on your account. Use this tab to reach a post that never got a comment or was shared months ago. If you have more than one account, narrow it down with Account.

The middle column is the comment list. Click a comment and its thread opens below it. Replies to a comment don't get their own row. They show up under the comment, so you never read the same conversation twice in the list.

The right column shows the content of the selected post. When you select comments in the list, it turns into the Bulk action panel.

On a phone, the post content and the bulk action panel open in a separate drawer.

Pending comments and statuses

When no post is selected, the list only shows comments with the Not reviewed status. This is your to-do list for the day. When you've cleared it, you'll see No new comments.

When you select a post, all of that post's comments are shown.

Each comment has a badge that tells you what happened to it:

Badge	Meaning
Not reviewed	Nobody has replied yet. It's waiting for you.
Automation replied	A comment automation replied to this comment.
You replied	You wrote a reply from the panel.
Bulk reply sent	A template was sent with a bulk reply.
Replied outside the app	Someone replied from the Instagram or Facebook app.
Hidden	The comment is hidden on the post.
Deleted	The comment no longer exists on the platform.
Handled	You closed this comment. The post wasn't changed.
From history	The comment was fetched from Meta when an older post was opened.

When you reply to a comment from the Instagram or Facebook app on your phone, the panel removes it from the pending list as soon as it sees that reply. If you work from both places, you won't reply to the same comment twice.

Filters and saved filters

Above the list there's a Search comments box and a filter button. In the Filters window you can choose:

• Status: Not reviewed, Replied, Hidden, Handled.
• Platform: Instagram or Facebook.
• Answered by: Automation, Me, from the panel, Bulk template, On Instagram / Facebook.
• Date range: Today, Last 7 days, Last 30 days, or your own start and end dates.

Active filters appear as small tags under the search box. If the list looks short, you'll see why right away.

The Answered by filter is handy for looking back. For example, "comments the automation answered last week" is Answered by: Automation plus Last 7 days.

To keep a combination you use often, open the Templates and filters window, give the filter a name and press Save the current filter. A saved filter is applied with one click from the Saved filters list. It only stores the filters, not the selected post.

Replying with saved templates

If you write the same reply dozens of times a day, use a template.

1. Open the window with the Templates and filters button in the filter bar.
2. Fill in the Template name and Template text fields.
3. To add the commenter's name to the text, choose Username under Insert variable. It appears in the text as Username.
4. Press Save template.

When you open a comment's thread, use the Saved template button next to the reply box to drop the template into the box. The variable is filled in with the person's name before sending. You can edit the text before you send it. Enter sends the reply, Shift+Enter starts a new line.

A sample template:

Hi Username, we've sent you the details by DM. Please check your inbox.

What appears under the comment:

How much is this?

Hi zeynep.k, we've sent you the details by DM. Please check your inbox.

The reply was written in the panel with a Saved template. The username was filled in automatically.

Templates have no product variable. Because a template can also be used on older comments, only the username is supported.

Bulk actions

If the same question shows up dozens of times on a post, you don't have to answer each comment one by one.

1. Select comments in the list. To take them all, press Select all in the list. This only covers the rows loaded on screen. For more, extend the list with Load more and select again.
2. Pick a Template in the Bulk action panel on the right.
3. Press Bulk reply.

Bulk replies go out a little at a time, not all at once. The panel shows the progress.

The same panel has other actions too. Bulk hide and Delete selected change the comments on the post. Mark selected as handled only clears your list. Run automation on selected runs the selected comments through a comment automation.

Actions that change the post vs. inbox actions

In a comment's thread, actions are split into two groups. Knowing the difference keeps you from changing your post by accident.

The Comment on the post group changes the comment everyone sees:

• Hide: The comment is hidden under the post. The person who wrote it still sees it, others don't. Bring it back with Unhide. On Instagram, replies under a hidden comment, including yours, are hidden along with it.
• Delete: The comment is removed from the post for good. This can't be undone.

The Inbox group only affects this screen:

• Mark as handled: takes a comment that needs no reply, like an emoji, off the pending list.
• Run automation: starts the comment automation for this comment by hand.

Deleted comments and syncing

When someone deletes their comment, the panel notices it through a notification from Meta or during a regular sync and gives the comment a Deleted badge. If you try to reply to a deleted comment, you'll see the warning "This comment no longer exists on the platform; it looks deleted."

When you select a post, its comments sync with Meta in the background. You don't need to press a button for it. While this happens, a short info bar appears above the list. When the sync is done, you see how many comments were added and how many were removed.

Using it with comment automation

The Comments screen doesn't replace comment automation. It works alongside it. The automation answers repeat comments like "price?" without you looking. The screen is there for the comments the automation didn't catch and for checking the results.

Things to know when you use both:

• Automation only runs on comments waiting for a reply. On a comment you've already answered, Run automation sends nothing.
• The trigger is checked again for each comment. When you run automation on selected comments, nothing is sent to comments that don't match the trigger. Flows that use the AI Intent Detector also use your monthly AI credits here.
• The private message rule still applies. If the flow has a Private DM step, Meta's rule applies here too: one private message per comment, within 7 days of the comment. Comments past that window don't get a private message.
• An active flow must cover the post. If no comment automation covers the post, the panel tells you.

Here's one way to catch price questions on a forgotten post: open the post from the All posts tab, filter by the Not reviewed status, select the comments and choose Run automation on selected.

We explain how to build a flow that sends a private message to price questions in our auto DMs for price comments guide. For details on your Facebook Page, see the Facebook comment automation page.