Messenger Platform

Sender Actions

Updated: Jan 21, 2026
This guide explains how to display your actions in a conversation to let message recipients know that you have seen and are processing their message.

Display a Sender Action

To display the action for a sender in the conversation, send a POST request to the /PAGE-ID/messages endpoint with the sender_action parameter set to typing_on.
curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
  "recipient":{
    "id":"<PSID>"
  },
  "sender_action":"typing_on"
}' "https://graph.facebook.com/VERSION/PAGE-ID/messages?access_token=PAGE-ACCESS_TOKEN;"

React or unreact to a message

To send a reaction, send a POST request to /PAGE-ID/messages with recipient containing the Page-scoped ID (<PSID>); sender_action set to react; payload containing the message_id set to the message ID to react to; and reaction set to any emoji reaction(<😊/🎉/etc>) or a valid UTF-8 representation of an emoji.
To edit a sent reaction, repeat this request with the reaction set to the new emoji reaction.
To remove a reaction, repeat this request with sender_action set to unreact with the payload containing message_id only.

Sample Request

curl -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
    "recipient": {
      "id": "{PSID}"
    },
    "sender_action": "react",  // Or set to unreact to remove the reaction
    "payload": {
      "message_id": "<MESSAGE_ID>",
      "reaction":"😊/ 🎉/ \ud83d\udc4b" // Omit if removing a reaction
    }
  }' "https://graph.facebook.com/v25.0/me/messages?access_token={PAGE_ACCESS_TOKEN}"
On success, your app will receive the following JSON response with the recipient’s ID and the message ID.
{ "recipient_id": "PAGE-SCOPED-ID" }

Limitations

  • Requests to display sender action should only include the sender_action parameter and the recipient object. All other Send API properties, such as text and templates, should be sent in a separate request.
  • The recipient must be signed in for sender actions to be displayed.
Visit the Page Messages reference for a complete list of sender actions.

Best Practices

  • Send the mark_seen indicator when your bot receives a message so that the user does not feel ignored.
  • Send the typing_on indicator when your bot receives a message it will respond to. This helps create a conversational experience.
  • Send typing_on and typing_off actions in the separate batch requests. Batched requests are executed in order very quickly. This quick execution may result in the typing_on indicator being displayed for a fraction of a second if both actions are sent in the same batch.
  • Do not allow an unnatural amount of time (too long or too short) to pass between typing_on and typing_off sender actions. Ideally, the user should feel that a real person was typing the message in the elapsed time.

See Also

Developer Support