How to Make a Private Story on Snapchat: An In-Depth Technical Guide

Snapchat revolutionized ephemeral social media content. Once a snap is viewed, it disappears from the app‘s servers after 24 hours. But Snapchat‘s Stories feature allows you to string multiple snaps together into a longer narrative that sticks around a bit longer.

By default, any of your Snapchat friends can view your Stories. But Snapchat gives you more selective options as well, thanks to Private Stories.

Private Stories allow you to handpick a custom audience to view your content. Instead of blasting a Story out to all friends, you can narrow it down just for your closest contacts.

In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll cover everything you need to know about crafting Private Stories on Snapchat.

What Exactly is a Snapchat Private Story?

A Private Story is a custom Story you create with a limited, specified viewership. When posting a snap, you can designate it for either:

• Public Story: Viewable by any friend.
• Private Story: Viewable only by certain friends you pick.

You get to selectively add and remove friends from accessing each Private Story you make. Up to 20 different Private Stories can be created, with no limit on the number of friends added to each.

According to Snapchat, over 31% of Stories created daily are Private Stories. This allows snap creators to share more personal, exclusive content with their inner circles.

Private Stories Explained

Techically speaking, Private Stories operate similarly to public Stories with a few key differences:

• Access permissions are limited when creating the Story
• Metadata denotes the Story as private
• Distribution gets restricted to authorized friend IDs only
• Encryption levels are likely heightened

When posting a snap, Snapchat‘s servers allow you to flag it for inclusion in a specified Private Story. Software checks whether the viewer‘s credentials match the list of authorized friends before displaying.

Step-by-Step Guide to Building a Private Story

Crafting a Private Story is simple and intuitive even for novice Snapchatters. Just follow these steps:

1. Open your profile by tapping your profile icon (Bitmoji or avatar) in the top left.

2. Find Private Stories. Scroll down and tap "Private Story" underneath the "My Stories" header.

3. Select friends. Tap to choose specific friends you wish to view the Private Story.

4. Name it. Type a name for your Private Story. Try making it descriptive.

5. Share snaps. Post snaps as usual and designate them to your new Private Story!

You‘ll immediately see a visual difference that distinguishes Private from public Stories:

The padlock icon indicates a Private Story, visible only to certain friends. If any of your friends add you to their Private Story, you‘ll see this icon too.

Customizing Your Private Story Audience

The key power of Private Stories lies in controlling exactly who‘s part of the inner circle. Whenever you first make a Private Story, you pick who can view it. Over time your sharing preferences may shift for certain friend groups.

No problem − Snapchat lets you edit the audience after creation:

To add friends:

1. Tap the ⋮ dot icon to access options.

2. Choose Edit Story Audience.

3. Check off additional friends to add.

4. Tap Done to confirm changes.

To remove friends:

1. Tap the ⋮ dot icon to access options.

2. Choose Edit Story Audience.

3. Uncheck friends you wish to block.

4. Tap Done to confirm changes.

Once a friend gets removed, they permanently lose access to view any past or future content added to that Private Story moving forward.

Audience Limitations

When building your Private Story‘s viewership, you have unlimited freedom with one exception:

• Up to 200 friends can be added per Private Story

This limit prevents Snapchat‘s servers from getting overloaded. Still, 200 friends is likely more than you need for most inner circles.

For larger distributions (like promoting a product across all friends), use the public Story option instead.

Posting Snaps to Your Private Story

When you capture a snap, you can add it to any relevant Stories just like before. Private Stories simply become another option:

1. Tap the camera icon to open Snapchat‘s camera

2. Take your snap as desired

3. Tap "Send To" on the bottom bar

4. Select your new Private Story!

Remember, the snaps you add to a Private Story can only be viewed by the friends you handpicked for that specific Story‘s audience.

You remain the sole contributor able to post snaps as well. So feel free to snap freely about inside jokes or private events without worrying about who might see!

How Friends Can View Your Private Stories

If someone adds you to their Private Story, viewing their exclusive content works similarly to public Stories.

When friends share Private Stories they created with you, they‘ll appear together in the Stories tray:

Private Stories are denoted by the padlock icon. To view a friend‘s private content:

1. Tap your friend‘s name and Bitmoji to open their profile

2. Tap any Private Story icon next to their public Story

3. Swipe/tap normally to view snaps from their Private Story!

You will only see Private Stories that you have been personally invited to − part of the exclusivity factor.

Downloading or Screenshotting

When viewing a friend‘s Private Story, note that the standard Snapchat limitations remain in place:

• Cannot screenshot snaps
• Cannot download or save snaps

This maintains privacy and ephemerality even within the inner circle. So feel confident sharing more daring or personal snaps via Private Stories!

Customizing Overall Privacy Settings

Beyond Private Stories, Snapchat provides additional privacy tools for controlling:

• Who can contact you directly
• Who views your public Stories
• Who access your location data

Think of these as global permissions that apply by default across your entire Snapchat presence.

To edit Snapchat privacy settings:

1. Tap your profile > Settings (gear) icon

2. Choose Privacy to reveal options like:

   • Who Can Contact Me: Everybody, Friends Only, or Custom

   • Who Can View My Stories: Everybody, Friends Only, or Custom

   • View My Location: Everybody, Friends Only, Custom

3. Tap back to save any changes.

I recommend toggling these to "Friends Only" as a safer default approach. This prevents random Snapchatters from messaging you without consent.

Recent Privacy Concerns

Snapchat has faced scrutiny over privacy-related incidents before. In 2013, security researchers discovered unclaimed Snaps remained stored on smartphones and were recoverable.

And in 2021, scammers abused a Snapchat API to obtain phone numbers and emails of 500,000 users.

The company has since beefed up security and fixed these exploits. And using Private Stories provides an extra layer of protection by limiting distribution to trusted friends only.

How to Delete a Private Story

Over time your sharing needs may evolve. If you no longer want a particular Private Story:

1. Tap your Snapcode icon to access your profile

2. Tap the Private Story you wish to remove

3. Choose the ⋮ menu dot icon

4. Select Delete Story

5. Confirm deleting the Private Story completely

Once erased, the Private Story disappears for you and all friends invited to view it:

• Friends immediately lose access to view it
• You free up one of 20 allotted Private Story slots
• All snaps within are likely deleted from Snapchat‘s servers

Are Deleted Snaps Truly Gone?

Given past data privacy incidents, you may wonder whether erased Private Story snaps get permanently scrubbed from Snapchat‘s systems.

According to Snapchat‘s law enforcement guide, once a snap gets opened by all recipients, their systems automatically delete it:

"On the recipient‘s device, once the Snap has been opened, the app checks in with our servers to see if it has been opened by all intended recipients. If it has, we initiate deletion from our servers."

For legal compliance, some metadata may remain stored in backups. But the content itself disappears upon full viewing. So you can share freely romantic or silly snaps through Private Stories without digital records remaining!

Private Stories vs. Snapchat Groups

When sharing with an inner circle, Snapchat also offers Group Chats. But Groups and Private Stories serve different functions:

In summary:

• Use Private Stories to share a feed of disappearing content with selected friends

• Use Groups for closed conversations with a custom set of friends

Choose the best fit depending on your use case! Both give you more control over privacy.

The Takeaway: Craft Your Close Friends Experience

Snapchat empowers you to segment content sharing with friends into public and private modes. Take advantage of Snapchat‘s Custom Stories to get more targeted with mini-networks of your closest contacts.

Now you have a full guide to confidently creating Snapchat Private Stories from start to finish!

The key highlights to remember are:

• Private Stories let you share disappearing snaps with selected friends only
• Pick up to 200 friends per Private Story
• Only you can post snaps to your own Private Story
• Friends added will view your private content mixed with your public Stories
• Leverage overall privacy settings to limit messaging/viewing
• Deleted Private Stories likely get wiped from Snapchat‘s servers

Now get snapping your most exclusive moments to your inner circles! Take your social sharing to the next level with Snapchat‘s Private Story superpowers.