How to Delete Messages on Snapchat: The Ultimate Guide
Snapchat has become one of the most popular messaging apps among teenagers and young adults. Its ephemeral nature allows users to share fun, casual messages without worrying about leaving a permanent digital record.
However, sometimes a message is sent prematurely or the content is too personal to remain visible indefinitely. In these cases, deleting Snapchat messages can help users regain control over their digital footprints.
In this comprehensive guide, we’ll cover everything you need to know about removing messages on Snapchat.
Understanding Snapchat Messaging
Before learning how to delete Snapchat messages, it helps to understand exactly how messaging works on this platform.
There are a few different ways Snapchat allows users to communicate:
Snaps
- Photo or video messages that disappear after being viewed. These self-destruct by default.
Stories
- Collections of snaps that remain visible to friends for 24 hours. You can manually delete individual snaps from your own stories.
Chat Messages
- Permanent text, video and audio messages between friends. These need to be manually deleted.
Group Chats
- All users in a group conversation can view and send chat messages. This makes mass deletion trickier.
The remainder of this guide focuses specifically on deleting chat messages from one-on-one and group conversations.
Step-by-Step: Deleting Snapchat Chat Messages
Deleting Snapchat messages is a straightforward process whether you use iOS or Android. Here are separate step-by-step instructions for each:
On iPhone
Open the Snapchat app and log in if necessary.
Swipe right on the Camera Screen to access your Chat Screen.
Tap on the conversation containing the message(s) you want to delete.
Long press the specific message(s) you wish to delete.
Tap the trash icon to delete individual messages or…
Tap ‘Delete Chat’ to erase the entire conversation.
On Android
Open the Snapchat app and log in if necessary.
Swipe right on the Camera Screen to access your Chat Screen.
Tap and hold the conversation you wish to delete messages from.
Tap ‘Select Messages’ from the pop-up menu.
Check the boxes beside each message you want to delete.
Tap the trash icon to delete your message selection or…
Tap ‘Delete Chat’ to erase the entire conversation.
And that’s it! A few simple taps allows you to easily rid your Snapchat inbox of any message faux pas.
But before you rapidly empty out conversations, let’s talk about Snapchat’s message retention policies…
Can Deleted Snapchat Messages Be Recovered?
If you’re deleting messages to hide evidence or erase regrettable decisons, make sure you understand Snapchat’s policies around data retention.
The short answer is:
Snapchat stores all messages, even after deletion, but aims to purge them ASAP. However complete erasure isn’t guaranteed.
When you go to remove a chat message on Snapchat, it disappears from your device interface and the recipient’s screen.
But that doesn’t mean it’s permanently wiped from existence.
Behind the scenes, Snapchat may retain messages on their servers for an indeterminate amount of time. How long likely depends on variables like storage space, development requirements and legal obligations.
Additionally, your message recipients may have already screenshotted conversations without your knowledge. There is no foolproof way to guarantee deletion on their devices.
While admirable from a privacy standpoint, this behavior doesn’t inspire much user confidence. It directly contradicts Snapchat’s values around ephemerality.
The key risk: Personal messages you believed to be deleted could resurface down the road and come back to bite. For example, police or legal teams may be able to work with Snapchat to access your message history if necessary.
While the odds of this happening to everyday users is slim, it illustrates the need for heightened caution on social platforms – even those branded as “disappearing” messaging apps.
Clearing Conversations En Masse
Up until now, we’ve focused on removing individual chat messages. But what if you want to delete an entire conversation thread for everyone involved?
Snapchat refers to this process as “clearing” rather than outright deleting.
You can clear one-on-one conversations as well as groups chats that you created. Just keep in mind:
Clearing a chat permanently erases the entire history. You can’t pick and choose portions to keep.
Your conversation partners will know if you clear a chat. They’ll see a note explaining who performed the action.
Here are the steps to clear conversations on both major mobile platforms:
On iPhone
From your Chat Screen, swipe left on the conversation you wish to clear.
Tap the settings gear icon in the top right corner.
Select ‘Clear Conversation’ then confirm your choice.
On Android
From your main Chat Screen, long press the conversation you want to clear.
Tap the three dot menu button then ‘More’.
Choose ‘Clear Conversation’ then confirm.
And voila! You’ve just wholesale erased a chat thread from all participating devices.
Pro tip: You can also clear all conversations at once via Snapchat’s Account Settings. But heed this nuclear option carefully!
Best Practices for Self-Deleting Messages
If manually pruning conversations sounds like too much effort, opt for auto-deletion instead.
Snapchat allows you to set all one-on-one chats to expire automatically after 24 hours or right after viewing.
Here’s how to configure self-destructing messages in a few taps:
From your Chat Screen, long press on a contact’s name.
Select ‘Chat Settings’.
Choose ‘Delete Chats…’
Pick your preferred auto deletion timeframe:
- After Viewing
- 24 Hours After Viewing
Now you can enjoy the catharsis of firing off spur-of-the-moment messages, knowing they’ll vanish into the ether soon after.
Downsides of Self-Deleting Chats
While convenient, automating Snapchat message deletion isn’t without downsides:
You lose message history – Self-deleting chats mean you forfeit easy access to past conversations. Make sure you’re comfortable losing records before enabling this feature.
It’s all or nothing – You can’t select individual messages to auto-delete while saving others. It’s 24-hour destruction for everything.
You can’t auto-delete groups – Unfortunately self-destruct settings only apply to private one-on-one conversations. You’ll need to manually remove messages from group chats.
How Does Message Deletion Compare to WhatsApp & Instagram?
To wrap up this guide, let’s compare Snapchat’s message management capabilities to two other mega-popular messaging apps.
On WhatsApp, deleted messages disappear from the sender’s device, but remain fully visible for recipients. Additionally, WhatsApp reserves the right to retain “copies of deleted information” on their servers.
In summary, once you hit send on WhatsApp consider it permanent, regardless of your later deletion efforts.
Snapchat is the clear winner for having recipient-side message removal and for striving to eliminate server copies (at least nominally).
Instagram Direct messaging allows users to “unsend” texts within 10 minutes of sending. Doing so removes the message on both recipients’ and senders’ screens.
After 10 minutes, however, your text is etched permanently into the Instagram ether.
Additionally, Instagram Stores auto-delete after 24 hours by default with no option to change this. Sound familiar Snapchat users?
Snapchat comes out ahead here due to having no time limit restrictions on message unsending.
Key Takeaways
And there you have it – a comprehensive walkthrough of Snapchat message deletion.
Here are the key takeaways:
- Deleting Snapchat messages is easy – just long press and tap trash.
- Clearing entire conversations erases histories for all participants.
- Auto-deleting chats is convenient but sacrifices histories.
- Deleted messages may still reside on Snapchat’s servers.
- Recipients can also retain copies via screenshots.
- Exercise caution when sending sensitive content.
Hopefully this guide gave you newfound confidence for managing messages on one of the world’s most popular (and at times chaotic) messaging platforms.
Happy Snapping!
