Snapchat privacy settings and features worth knowing

Snapchat is built around friends, but several settings still decide who can reach you. Open Settings and look for the privacy controls, where you can choose who is allowed to send you snaps and chats. Review that choice if you have ever accepted requests casually or shared your username publicly.

Other settings shape how strangers find you. Quick Add suggests you to other users and suggests them to you, and you can choose whether you appear there. Your username is the way most people add you, so treat it like a phone number: share it deliberately, and if you receive requests from people you do not know, ignore or block them and report anything abusive.

Blocking and removing friends are available from a friend's profile. Blocking stops that person from contacting you and from seeing your stories, and it is a normal privacy step rather than something to feel awkward about.

A story is a collection of snaps that others can watch for a limited time. In the privacy controls you can choose who may view your story: friends, everyone or a custom list. Choose the narrowest option that still fits how you use the app.

Custom lists are useful for sharing with a small group, such as family or a team, without showing the story to every friend. You can also create separate private stories for specific people, and you can check who has viewed each story. Before you post, look at the audience shown on the screen, especially if you have more than one story.

Anyone who can see a snap may be able to save or record it, so send only what you are comfortable seeing shared. If you have a public profile, remember that content you post to public spaces can be seen by people you do not know.

Snap Map shows friends on a map and can show the places where people share snaps. You control whether your own location is shared, and you can choose all friends, selected friends or nobody. Ghost Mode hides your location from others while still letting you look at the map.

Open the map settings from time to time and check who is on your sharing list. Friendships change, and a person you added long ago may not need to know where you are now. Be especially careful with any setting that could reveal when you are at home, at school or at work.

Location can also matter to the camera and to features that add a place to a snap. In your phone's system settings you can decide whether the Snapchat app may use location at all, and you can allow it only while the app is in use.

My AI is a chatbot that appears in the chat list and answers questions or suggests ideas inside Snapchat. It is powered by a generative AI system, so it can be wrong, and its answers should be checked before you rely on them for anything important.

Do not share passwords, addresses, financial information or other sensitive details in a conversation with My AI. Snapchat provides controls related to My AI in its privacy settings, including options to clear the data associated with your conversations, and it explains how conversations may be used in its privacy information. Read that page so you know what happens to what you type.

Parents and guardians can use Snapchat's Family Center, where available, to see some information about how teens use the app, though options depend on region and age. A sensible approach for any user is to treat the assistant as a public-facing tool rather than a private diary.

Memories is Snapchat's storage for snaps and stories you choose to save. Because it lives in your account, it can act as a backup if you change phones, and it lets you look at old pictures without keeping every file on the device. Check the Memories settings to see how backup works on your account, and note that storage allowances and options can change.

My Eyes Only is a private area inside Memories protected by a passcode. It suits pictures you want to keep away from anyone who borrows your phone. Write the passcode down somewhere safe, because if you lose it Snapchat may not be able to recover what is inside. Do not treat it as the only copy of something important; store a second copy elsewhere.

If you decide to leave Snapchat, save what you want to keep before you delete the account. Snapchat lets you request a copy of your data from the account settings, and doing that early avoids a rushed search later.

Turn on two-factor authentication in your account settings. Snapchat can ask for a code from a text message or from an authenticator app in addition to your password, and the app option is usually the better choice because it does not depend on your phone number. When you set it up, you can also get a recovery code; store it offline or in a password manager.

Use a password you do not use anywhere else, and make sure the email address and phone number on the account are ones you still control, since they are your route back in. Check the list of devices and logins if your version shows one, and change your password if you see something you do not recognize.

Be wary of anyone who asks for a login verification code, who promises extra features if you enter your credentials on another site or who offers to recover an account in exchange for a favor. Third-party apps that ask for your Snapchat password are not official, and using them can breach Snapchat's rules. A code you did not request suggests that someone is trying to sign in, so change your password.

Accounts can become unavailable for several reasons: a forgotten password, a change of phone number, a temporary lock after unusual activity or a decision by Snapchat after a rules violation. The first step is to work out which case applies from the message shown in the app.

For a forgotten password, use the reset option on the login screen and choose the email address or phone number linked to the account. If sign-in fails because you lost access to the phone or the authenticator app, use your recovery code if you saved one. For a temporary lock, follow the instructions on the screen and use Snapchat's official support pages, since the steps change over time.

If Snapchat has locked or restricted the account for a violation, use the official appeal or review route it describes and wait for its answer. Do not create workaround accounts, pay anyone who claims a special connection to Snapchat or hand your credentials to a recovery service. Those routes can lead to scams and can breach the platform's rules.

Follow Snapchat's terms of use and community guidelines for every account you obtain or use. Snapchat belongs to its owner, and rStock is an independent marketplace that is not affiliated with Snapchat.

On rStock, independent stores sell digital goods. Stores are approved by the platform and each product listing is reviewed before it goes live. You pay from your rStock balance, and the delivered content appears on your order page as a delivery record linked to the order. Your payment is held rather than released to the store at once, and after delivery you can open a dispute within a limited window. The store replies first, and a moderator can step in if needed. After you receive any account, apply the security steps above.