How to check filtered facebook messages

If you enter competitions on Facebook, you should be checking your message inbox (or Messenger app) regularly in case you get a winning notification! But it’s not as straightforward as it seems – there are also Message Requests and Filtered Messages to check.

• If you get a Facebook message from a friend (or a page you’ve messaged), it will go into your regular Messenger inbox at www.facebook.com/messages
• If a message comes in from someone Facebook thinks you might know, it will appear as a Message Request (or Connection request) at the top of your inbox at www.facebook.com/messages/requests
• Messages from non-friends, assumed by Facebook to be spam, are sent to your Filtered Messages at www.facebook.com/messages/filtered

A Facebook page (company) can only message a fan directly if they have commented on their page – OR they can message if the fan has previously sent a message. Sometimes though, a winning notification will come from a page admin, who has to use their personal account to send that message – and it may well go to your Filtered Messages folder!

Find your messages on facebook.com

Go to www.facebook.com and click the speech bubble icon at the top of your browser window to get to your messages – it shows Recent by default, but you can click the Message Requests tab (this will show a number in brackets if you have unread messages). Click to view a request and at the bottom you can Accept or Decline it.

Scroll right down to the bottom of all your Message Requests and you should see a link to see Filtered Requests (see screenshot below) – if you have any! You can Reply to or Delete a Filtered message.

Find your messages on messenger.com

If you click See All in Messenger from Facebook, or go directly to messenger.com, your inbox has a slightly different format. Click the settings icon in the top left of your browser and choose Connection Requests to see your Message Requests. Scroll down past them and you can click to see filtered requests.

Find your messages using the Messenger app

To find your Message Requests on mobile, open Messenger and tap People then Requests at the top. Scroll down past all your requests and you’ll see the Filtered Messages heading (if you have any!). Tap to Show all.

Tapping the X will decline a message request (or delete a filtered message).
Tapping the tick will move the message to your regular inbox.

If you pick up an old winning message and find you’ve missed the claim date for your prize (or there was no claim date!) don’t despair. Send a polite message back to the promoter explaining that you didn’t know about the Filtered Messages folder – they may be sympathetic!