Snapchat: Every Useful Hack

Pic: Flickr Creative Commons / Thoroughly Reviewed

Snapchat is a social media app used globally that many people use to communicate with each other, to broadcast their lives and to share pictures and videos. Here are a bunch of tips on how to use the app and get the most out of it.

Everything deletes after it is seen

When you share a video or picture with someone, when they see it, they have one chance to replay it and if they don’t keep it by screenshotting or screen recording, that video or picture is gone forever. When you message someone on Snapchat and they open it, if they go off the chat without saving it, that message is gone. You can save the message by simply tapping on it and it will stay there. Recently Snapchat has introduced two new features where you can delete a message you have sent regardless of it is was saved or not. You can now also turn on a setting which allows all messages to stay if they are unsaved for 24 hours.

Snapchat tells you when someone screenshots

If somebody screenshots your snap, a picture or video, Snapchat will notify you telling you they have done so. If someone screenshots your story, in your story setting where you can see who has viewed it, it also tells you who screenshotted.

There is a way to get out of someone knowing you have screenshotted

People always wonder, what if you don’t want somebody to know you have screenshotted or what if someone has screenshotted you but you don’t know? Here is the answer. If you do not want somebody to know you have screenshotted, you can turn your device on aeroplane mode and then screenshot. This counts for virtually anything, chats, snaps and even stories. You then log out and clear Snapchat from previously opened apps. Then you can return to normal mode and log back in. The person will never know you have screenshotted.

Everybody can tell when it is your birthday

When you set up Snapchat it asks you for some details, one of which includes your birthday. On the date you allocated for your birthday next to your name, the birthday cake emoji will pop up for the whole 24 hours on your day. This means people can tell when it is your birthday and birthday snap you. Also, some people do not want others to know when their birthday is so they put the date as a random one to keep it a secret.

You can create your own personal bitmoji and start streaks with people

A bitmoji is a cartoon character you can design that can be linked to your own Snapchat account. A bitmoji includes facial features like hair and eyes that you can change to make it look like you. You can also change your outfit. From this people may be able to tell your skin colour if you set it to be accurate and your dress sense. A streak is a number next to someone’s name that shows for how many days you have been consecutively sending a picture snap. This picture snap can consist of anything and the streak (number) appears after 3 days of this. You lose the streak once one of you goes 24 hours without sending a picture snap to the other.

With Snapchat you can identify any song playing around you

Snapchat has an inbuilt Shazam feature in which you can identify any song playing around you. If you go on to the Snapchat camera and hold down on the screen after a short while Snapchat’s Shazam will identify the song and it will pop up on your screen. It will tell you the name of the song and the artist. You will never be stuck for the name of a song again!

You can find out if another user follows you back

When you click on somebody’s name you can tell if they have added you back or not. Everybody has a snap score which is the calculation of how many snaps you have sent or received since you have had your account. If you can see the person’s snap score, they have added you back. If not, they haven’t.

You can allow people to see your location

If you use two fingers to demonstrate the zoom-out motion, a map of your area will appear. Here if anyone has their location on, you will see their bitmoji wherever they are and when they were there. This way you can tell if someone is active or not because it will show ‘seen just now’ if they are active. To disable this way of people being able to locate you, you can simply flick the switch that says ‘ghost mode’ on so people cannot see where you are unless you share a snap with a geofilter, which can sometimes say the name of the area you are in.

You can open chats without the other person knowing!

I like to call this method the ‘swipe and peer’. When someone has sent you a chat, you can slide slowly making sure you don’t let go as far as you can to see what they say. If you let go, the chat will open and you will have to view it as you normally would. This method is used a lot by people who don’t like to open chats without knowing what they are going to reply with.