Your Snapchat messages don’t actually disappear unless you do this

• How to prevent photo Snapchats from being saved in the chat
• How to prevent video Snapchats from being saved in the chat

Oh, Snapchat — the app that changed instant messaging as we know it in middle school, and now the platform people turn to when they’re too afraid to actually text someone. Love it or hate it, Snapchat is a communication platform that over 900 million people use every month to share pictures, videos, and text-based chats — a completely revolutionary way to talk to your friends in family back in 2011.

Its popularity didn’t come without controversy, though. Snapchat was known for its (potentially) problematic display of each user’s top friends list, timed photos and videos, and text chats that disappeared as soon as you closed out of them. These features are what made Snapchat iconic at its onset, but they also stirred a lot of pots when it came to real-life connections.

Gone are those days, as the media-messenger grew to be more than just an instigator app with features such as Snaps without time limits, replays, permanent messaging, and even the ability to save texts, pictures, and videos to your chat threads and camera roll. But what if you don’t want someone keeping those receipts? Here’s how to allow or prevent someone from saving your Snaps in the chat.

How to prevent photo Snapchats from being saved in the chat

The setting isn’t where you think it is

Like I mentioned, you can choose to put a time limit on your Snaps or remove it entirely, so your recipients don’t have to rush to read your paragraph in 10 seconds. If you do remove the time limit, all Snaps sent that way are savable in the chat.

If you don’t want your Snaps to be savable via the chat, follow these instructions:

1. Open your Snapchat app.
2. Take a photo Snap by pressing the white circle at the bottom of your screen.
3. Once you’ve taken the picture, the editing menu will populate on the right side of your screen. At the very bottom, there will be a stopwatch icon with an infinity symbol in it. Click it.
4. The screen will darken, and a scrolling menu will appear with time limit options from .10 seconds to 10 seconds, plus the infinity symbol, which means ‘no limit.’ If you choose ‘no limit,’ your friends will be able to save your photo Snaps in the chat. If you choose any other timed option, your friends will not be able to save your Snaps.
5. To prevent photo Snaps from being saved in the chat, select any option other than ‘no limit.’

You’re done. It will be your default setting moving forward, but make sure to double-check every time you get ready to send a Snap to make sure it’s on the setting you prefer.

Note that this does not prevent someone from taking a screenshot or using a third-party app to screen capture your Snapchats. Setting a time limit doesn’t prevent this.

How to prevent video Snapchats from being saved in the chat

A similar process to photo Snaps

Snapchat isn’t just still images. In fact, video Snaps are my own favorite way to send vlogs and catch up with long-distance friends. You can save videos to the chat just like you can with photos with a few steps similar to the process above:

1. Open your Snapchat app.
2. Take a video by pressing and holding the white circle at the bottom of your screen. Release it when finished, or wait for the video to hit the time limit.
3. Once your video starts playing back to you, go to the editing menu on the right-hand side of the screen. At the bottom, there will be the Snap timer button. It’s an arrow loop with an infinity symbol inside.
4. Tapping this will toggle between Bounce, Play Once, and Loop. If you choose Loop or Bounce, this will allow your video Snap to be saved in the chat.
5. If you do not want your video Snaps to be saved, choose Play once.

This will be the default setting moving forward, but make sure to double-check all Snaps before you send them to make sure your desired setting is toggled.