Snapchat Privacy Settings: A Plain Guide to Every Control

The key Snapchat privacy settings are in the app’s settings under a privacy controls section: who can contact you, who can view your Story, who can see your location on Snap Map (turn on Ghost Mode to hide it), and whether you appear in Quick Add suggestions. Set contact and Story to friends, turn on Ghost Mode, and turn off Quick Add if you want a tight circle. Remember that snaps which “disappear” can still be screenshotted, recorded or photographed by the person receiving them.

Snapchat redesigns its menus often, so this guide explains what each control does rather than listing exact taps. The settings gear on your profile screen is the starting point for all of them.

How privacy works on Snapchat

Snapchat is built around sharing with friends, and most of its privacy settings decide whether “friends” really means friends or something wider. There are three layers:

• Contact. Who can send you snaps, chats and calls.
• Visibility. Who can see your Story, your location and your public profile content.
• Discovery. Whether Snapchat suggests you to people who aren’t your friends yet.

On top of that sits the thing no setting controls: what the people you send snaps to choose to do with them.

Contact me: who can reach you

This setting decides who can send you snaps, chats and calls. The options are generally friends only, or friends plus people in your phone contacts. Some account types have had an “everyone” option in the past; if you see it, avoid it unless you run a public creator account.

Friends only is the safest choice for most people. Strangers can still send you a friend request, but they can’t message you until you accept it. If someone is harassing you, blocking goes further; see how to block someone on Snapchat.

View my Story: who sees what you post

Your Story is visible to whatever audience you set: typically all your friends, or a custom list where you exclude specific people. Snapchat also lets you create private Stories for a chosen group each time you post.

Custom lists are useful if you’ve added coworkers, relatives or old classmates over the years but don’t want them seeing everything. Rather than unfriending people, exclude them from your Story.

Public Stories and Spotlight are different. Anything you post to Spotlight or a public profile Story can be seen by anyone, may be shared beyond Snapchat, and can stay up far longer than a regular Story. Treat those as public posts in every sense.

Snap Map and Ghost Mode

Snap Map can show your location to friends when you have the app open. Ghost Mode hides it completely. You can also choose to share your location with only certain friends.

For reputation and safety, Ghost Mode is the default we’d suggest. A friend list built up over years often includes people you wouldn’t give your home address to, and location shared over time can reveal where you live, work and spend your evenings.

Also check your phone’s own location permissions for Snapchat. Setting it to “while using the app” or turning location off limits what the app collects in the first place.

Note that snaps you submit publicly, such as to Spotlight or public Stories, may appear on the Map in a way that isn’t tied to Ghost Mode. Don’t post public content from your home.

Quick Add and being found

Quick Add suggests your profile to people who share friends with you or who have you in their contacts. Turning off the option to show you in Quick Add stops those suggestions.

If you want to stay hard to find, also review whether people can find you by your phone number and whether you’ve synced your contacts. Your username, display name and profile image (Bitmoji or photo) are typically visible to anyone who searches for you or gets your Snapcode, so keep your full name out of the display name if that matters to you.

Chats, screenshots and what “disappearing” means

Snapchat’s chats can be set to delete after viewing or after a set time, and snaps are deleted from Snapchat’s servers after they’re opened by default, with some exceptions such as saved snaps, Memories and unopened snaps. That is where the protection ends.

• Screenshots. Snapchat notifies you when someone screenshots a snap or chat in many cases, but that’s a notification, not a block.
• Other cameras. Someone can photograph their screen with another phone, and no notification happens.
• Saving in chat. A friend can save a message or snap in a chat, which keeps it there.
• Third-party apps. Unofficial apps that claim to save snaps secretly break Snapchat’s terms and often put the user’s own account at risk, but they exist.

Memories and My Eyes Only

Memories stores snaps and stories you choose to save, backed up to your Snapchat account. My Eyes Only is a passcode-protected section of Memories for more private items. It adds a layer if someone gets hold of your unlocked phone, but it doesn’t make the content disappear, and it’s only as safe as your account.

If you’re cleaning up, look through Memories for anything you’d rather not keep. Deleting it there removes it from your account backup. Our guide on how to delete Snapchat Memories walks through it.

My AI and other data settings

Snapchat’s My AI chatbot and its ad and data settings are also in the settings menu. Review what data you’ve allowed for ad personalization, and delete past My AI conversations if you’ve shared anything personal there. You can also request a download of your Snapchat data to see what the app has stored about you.

Security: the setting that protects all the others

1. Turn on two-factor authentication in your account settings.
2. Confirm your phone number and email are current, so you can recover the account.
3. Check which devices are logged in, where the app shows this, and log out of any you don’t recognize.
4. Never share your login code with anyone, including people claiming to be Snapchat support.

If you’re already locked out, follow our guide to a hacked Snapchat account.

A worked example

This is illustrative, not a real client. Oskar is 24 and has had Snapchat since school. He’s starting a teaching job and realizes his friend list includes several hundred people, many he barely remembers.

He sets “contact me” to friends only and turns on Ghost Mode, since his map location had been showing his apartment to anyone on the list. He turns off Quick Add. Rather than unfriending everyone, he builds a custom Story list of about thirty close friends and switches his Story to that list.

He removes his surname from his display name, deletes a few old snaps from Memories he doesn’t want backed up, and turns on two-factor authentication. He also reminds himself that anything already sent is outside his control now, so he doesn’t waste time worrying about it unless it resurfaces.

Common mistakes

• Trusting disappearing messages. They reduce storage on Snapchat, not the recipient’s ability to keep them.
• Leaving your location on for all friends. A large friend list plus live location is a real safety risk.
• Posting to Spotlight casually. Spotlight content is public and can spread far beyond your friends.
• Using your full name as your display name. It makes you easy to find and connect to other accounts.
• Forgetting teens’ accounts. Parents can use Snapchat’s Family Center to see who a teen is talking to without reading messages. See our guide to parental controls.

If content from Snapchat has been reposted on other platforms or shows up in search, our social media reputation management team can help you trace and report it. And if you’d rather leave for good, see how to delete a Snapchat account.

Frequently asked questions

How do I stop strangers from messaging me on Snapchat?

Set “contact me” to friends only in your privacy settings. Strangers can still send a friend request, but they can’t message you unless you accept it.

Can people see my location on Snapchat?

Only if you share it on Snap Map. Turn on Ghost Mode to hide your location from everyone, or share it with selected friends only.

Does Snapchat tell you when someone screenshots?

In many cases it notifies you, but it can’t stop someone photographing the screen with another device. Assume anything you send can be saved.

How do I hide my Snapchat Story from certain friends?

Create a custom audience for your Story that excludes those people, or post to a private Story with a chosen group.

Can I stop people finding me on Snapchat?

Turn off Quick Add, limit whether people can find you by phone number, and don’t use your full name as your display name. People who know your username can still search for it.