Snapchat is a popular photo-messaging app that allows it’s users to take photos, record videos, add drawings, and send them to their friends. Snapchat is a wonderful medium for sharing your life’s story with the world in only 10-second bits. When you receive a message on the app, commonly referred to as a snap, it will appear for only a few seconds (or a bit longer, you can change the settings to do so), but once you click away or the time limit expires, the snap is gone for good.
But if you’re someone who uses Snapchat more as a source of entertainment, you know how confusing it can be to get around the app. It’s filled with features, but they’re not laid out in a logical manner so you may feel its only to click pictures with filter and to share snaps with your friends. But, it’s not only what is seen on a surface, but some are also straight up hidden behind the long press and swipe gestures. These tips and tricks will improve your experience with Snapchat and help you explore more about Snapchat as there’s a lot to Snapchat and even for the young folks who make up the bulk of its users, there are lots of hidden features to uncover. So, let’s uncover the hidden features and enjoy the discovery with our tips and tricks:
- Getting Started: First of all, you need to download the app from either the App Store or Google Play. Once it’s installed, click the icon to open it. If you don’t have a Snapchat account, You can create one. Read the snapchat account creation tutorial we have posted before.
- Adjusting the settings: For updating your information, you need to head to the settings. There is a Bitmoji or profile icon in the upper-left corner of your screen, find it and tap it to adjust your settings. You have to locate the gear icon or “Settings icon” in the upper-right corner of the resulting menu to update your personal information. You can even choose who can send you snaps and view your Stories among your friends. Conversations caches and two-factor verification can also be cleared if you want to.
- Creating your Bitmoji: You are able to create personalized cartoon avatars of yourself and stickers to use within the SnapChat app and outside of it as well with the help of Bitmoji. Bitmoji is a lot of fun, you would surely like to create a Bitmoji avatar. If so, click the Bitmojioption in Settings to be redirected to the Bitmoji app. From there, you can create an avatar and link your Bitmoji to your Snapchat account. Click here for the details on linking Bitmoji with Snapchat.
- Find friends and add them: Tap Add Friends on your profile in order to add friends on Snapchat. You can then search for friends by their username. If you’ve already synced your contacts, you can go to the Contacts section, where all of your friends with Snapchat accounts will be displayed. When a friend adds you, you will get a notification saying a friend has added you. To add a friend who has already added you, tap “+Accept ” next to their name in the Add Friends menu. Now you both can share snaps with each other and can chat.
- Create your first snap: The camera is automatically activated when you first open up a SnapChat. You can easily adjust the focus by tapping on the screen. Put the camera in a selfie mode and tap your face, the filters will be activated. Tap to shoot, hold to record video. which means to snap a photo, tap the circle at the bottom of the screen and tap and hold the circle to take a video. With Snapchat, videos are recorded in 10-second increments, but you can record multiple snaps (up to six) if you hold the record button.
- Set picture time limit: Normally, pictures remain for only a few seconds after the receipts have seen the snaps. But u can adjust this setting by clicking on the clock like icon after you have taken a snap and set the timer to be from 1 second to 10 seconds and even infinite so that those snaps don’t disappear after the receiver has seen them.
- Spicing up your snaps:
One of the greatest things about Snapchat is that it offers plenty of features to make your snaps more interesting. You can doodle, add different hues, emojis, stickers, text, and adjust the time limit of your messages. You can even duplicate parts of the photos you and turn them into stickers.
- Add text
- Add lenses/filters
- Add doodles
- Add a cool filter or effect
- Add GIFs and stickers
- Adjust the time limit
- Save your snaps
Creating a unique snap is easier than ever, simply click the paper icon below the pencil tool and you will be taken to a menu where you can add GIFs, stickers, Bitmojis, and emojis. Plus if you already know what kind of sticker or GIF you want, you can use the search bar to find exactly what you are looking for. You can add text, doodles, cool filter, stickers and many more to make your snap unique and interesting. If you want to save your snap before sending, or before you cover it in stickers or doodles, tap on the downwards pointing arrow present at the bottom of the screen to download it. You can then choose to save it your Memories — a personal collection of snaps and stories on the app — or on your phone’s Camera Roll or gallery.
If you want to save an image to your phone, you must give Snapchat access to your photo album. If you don’t like the snap you took, and want to click the snap again, click the small grey X in the upper-left corner to delete your current snap and then return to your camera and click a fresh one.
To view your received snaps, go to the camera screen, and swipe right to access the Friends menu. You can also access this menu by tapping the Friends icon in the lower-left corner of the camera screen. If you have any unread messages, a circular notification should appear on this icon. Once you reach the menu, if there is a filled-in icon (blue for text, red for the photo, or purple for video) next to any of your friend’s names, that means you haven’t opened their snap yet. If you see an empty or white icon (or nothing at all), that means you’ve already viewed it. You can also see if you missed any snaps by clicking a particular person’s name and scrolling up in the chat log.
To see if your friends have received your messages, look under the name of the person you want to check. There will be a small box or arrow (in one of the three aforementioned colors) underneath their name. If either icon is white, that means they’ve opened it and it will tell you when they opened it to the right of that location. If they haven’t, it will tell you when the message was delivered.
Tips & Tricks For Snapchat | Snapchat Tips for Beginners
- Zoom in on videos using just one hand
- Save your data and battery using Travel Mode: Go to Settings >> Manage on Additional Services >> turn on Travel Mode.
- Use more than one filters: Select your first filter as normal, then hold down a finger to be able to select a second filter. Repeat this with an extra finger to get a third filter to be able to customize your Snap even more. Make sure the feature is turned on by heading to settings and clicking on “manage” and then “additional services” to toggle the Filters section on.
- Call your friends via Snapchat: Open the chat window with your friends and click on call or video call icon to make a call to your friends.
- Make your own stickers: Upload a picture you would like to make stickers of and user scissors to cut and make stickers out of it.
- Check if someone follows you: You don’t get notified if someone removes you as a friend, but there is a way to check if they have. You need to head to the screen that shows their Snapscore, and if there is a number present, they follow you. If there isn’t a number next to their username, then sadly they don’t follow you.
- Send Snaps even if you don’t have an internet connection: You can click a snap and send it to your friends. It will be saved and tap to retry will appear. Once when the internet is back, you can tap than your snap will be sent.
This much of knowledge about Snapchat will surely help you to use the Snapchat with much more ease. You are no more a newbie now. You can take some amazing snaps and utilize the features of Snapchat smoothly.
