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Snapchat has made it easier than ever to send your friends the most embarrassing, silly pictures ever and not worry too much about the consequences. After all, the pictures won’t remain with anyone, as long as they’re trustworthy and they don’t take a screenshot. But, you usually send such silly pictures to the people you do trust and know won’t betray you by saving them against your will. Then again, you have the option to share less silly pictures with all of your friends, through the Snapchat story option. This is where you upload share-worthy pictures which stay for a whole twenty four hours so all your friends can view them. But, there may come a time when you need to delete a snap from your Snapchat story.
You may be wondering why you’d need to delete a snap from a Snapchat story if you yourself have uploaded it. But, picture this. You take a really silly, embarrassing picture of yourself or your life with the intent of sending it to your best friend. Maybe you’re showing off your collection of stuffed animals that you still sleep with. Maybe you’re dressed in a way that you won’t want anyone but your best friend to see you, such as in your PJs. Maybe you’re not sending the snap to your friend at all, maybe it’s your boyfriend or girlfriend; a picture that is only for their eyes and not to be shared with the world. But, thick-fingered as many of us are, you accidentally upload the snap to your Snapchat story instead of sending it to the person it was intended for.
Well, you may think that’s a ridiculous scenario and it would never happen to you. How can someone be so careless, right? The answer is everyone. We have all made mistakes when it comes to using smartphones simply because they’re really sensitive. Typos and other such mistakes are common, so it’s easy to believe that this Snapchat accident can happen as well. And when it does, you need to know how to rectify it immediately. Which is where knowing how to delete a snap from Snapchat story comes in.
So, How Do You Do It? How Do You Delete a Snap From Snapchat Story?
Snapchat knows that people don’t want to face embarrassment if it can be avoided. So, even if you make the mistake of uploading a picture to your story that should never be seen by anyone, you don’t have to worry; Snapchat has thought of it and given you the option to delete it. If you really want to avoid the embarrassment, all you have to do is make sure you delete the snap before someone happens to see it. This means, you have to act quickly so you need to know how to delete a snap from Snapchat story beforehand, before you have to use the option.
- The first step is to turn on your phone and open the Snapchat app.
- If you haven’t logged in previously, or logged out for some reason, you can log in using your username and password now.
- The default screen that opens is always the Snapchat camera screen. So, swipe left on the screen or tap on the three dots icon near the bottom, right corner to open the Stories screen.
- At the top of the screen, tap on “My Story”.
- Then, tap on the Options icon to open a list of all the snaps in your story.
- Now, tap on the snap you want to delete from the story.
- Once this snap has opened, swipe up to open the options.
- Next, tap on the Trash icon visible at the bottom, right corner.
- Finally, tap on “Delete” to confirm that you do want to delete the snap from your story.
That’s it. See how easy it was to erase something that could be embarrassing? If only this was an option in the real world and the real life as well. But, until it is, we can be sure that we’ll be safe from embarrassment over Snapchat; as long as you delete the embarrassing stuff before someone sees it.
But, How Do You Know if Someone Saw It?
Okay, so we keep talking about deleting the snap before anyone actually sees it. That’s the whole point of wanting to delete a snap from Snapchat story in the first place. But, how do you know if you succeeded in doing that? How do you know whether someone saw the snap before you deleted it? Don’t worry, it’s pretty simple and doesn’t require a lot of time.
- We begin again by opening the Snapchat app on the phone you use.
- Log in if you aren’t already logged in and open the Stories screen as described above.
- Again, click on “My Story” and on the Options icon to open the snaps.
This time, when you open the list of your snaps, you have to look closely and see if any of the following are present:
- Purple Eye – If you see a purple eye icon next to any of the snaps, this means that someone has viewed that particular snap. There should also be a number next to the icon, which tells you exactly how many people have seen the snap so far.
- Two Green Arrows – This icon is something you would hope doesn’t appear next to the snap you wanted to delete. Why? Because the two green arrows mean that someone has taken a screenshot of this snap and immortalized it forever in their phones. If you want to check who took the screenshot, continue on below.
- Greyed Usernames – When you know that someone has seen your snap, but you want to know exactly who saw it, or you want to know who took the screenshot of your snap, you can check it easily. Simply, tap on the snap you want to check and swipe up when it opens. You’ll see a list of greyed usernames; these are all the people who have seen this particular snap. Anyone who has the two green arrows next to their name is the person who took the screenshot.
So, if you don’t see any of the above next to the snap you wanted to delete then you can rest easy because it means no one saw it. You can delete it without worrying about anything.
What If You Want to Delete Your Whole Snapchat Story?
So, you made more than the mistake of adding one wrong snap to your story. Perhaps you never noticed that you were sending every snap to both your friend and to your Snapchat story, for everyone to see. Or let’s say it’s something a little less anxiety-inducing, and you simply don’t like your Snapchat story now that you’re looking back it. Whatever your reasons for wanting to delete your whole story are, rest assured that it can be done. It’s not as easy as simply tapping on a “Delete All” button though. This is one feature that Snapchat has not yet provided its users, so you’ll have to delete every single snap on your story manually. If you really think it’s worth the time, then go ahead and do it. If you think you can stick it out, then let the story be since it will automatically disappear after twenty four hours.
Some Tips on Snapchat Stories
Deleting a snap from your story is a quick fix that you can use whenever you accidentally post something you didn’t want to. Or in case you regret posting something after having done so. But, to get the most of your Snapchat experience, particularly when it comes to the stories, you can follow the below tips.
- First, you can always limit the people who view your Snapchat story. If you have countless friends on Snapchat and you don’t want to delete them all, but you do want to make sure they can’t see your stories, you can limit their viewing privileges. How? By clicking on the cog icon next to your story and selecting one of the options under “Who can view your Story?” The options include Everyone, My Friends or Custom. So, you can select Custom and then specify who can view the story.
- Consider sending a snap to group of friends rather than uploading it to your story. If you think it’s something that won’t be taken well by some people, it’s better to stay on the safe side of things and just avoid posting it for everyone to see.
- Deleting your own story, for whatever reason, is one thing, but deleting someone else’s story is something else altogether. First, there is no way for you to do that. If the person is your friend, their story will show up in your feed. If you don’t want to view it, you can simply ignore it. But, if it annoys you so much that you don’t even want to see it in your feed, you can go a step further and block the person. However, doing so will mean that the person won’t be able to send you snaps personally either.
