Snapchat Sign Up and Lifecycle

Snapchat Sign Up

To sign up for Snapchat, you'll first need to download the app and create an account.

Download the Snapchat app from your preferred app store. When you first open it, you'll see a yellow screen with the Snapchat logo, and at the bottom a white button that says "Log In" and a blue button that says "Sign Up." The white button won't do anything until you have an account, so select the blue one.

The signup process will ask for your name and your date of birth, and then prompt you to pick a username and a password. It will then ask for a phone number, to send a verification code. You can, if you want, select the "Sign up with email instead" option, in blue text, directly underneath the text that says "What's your mobile number?"

If you sign up with an email address, you'll need to use it at least once more to verify your email later in the process. Some privacy-focused email providers allow you to create email aliases or throw-away addresses. They let you complete the verification step while keeping your personal email address separate.

Then follow the directions in the email or text message, and use the code that comes with them, to verify your account.

You may be prompted to complete a "Prove you're not a robot" captcha, but after this, you're done. You can start finding your friends' contact info and sending them time-limited photo messages, which Snapchat refers to as "Snaps."

Verify your Email with Snapchat

Some of the important functions discussed below will require a verified email address. If you chose to get your verification code, during the sign-up process, via email, then you already have one. If you chose to get your code via text messaging, then there are a couple of additional steps to complete.

Open the app. In the upper left corner, you should see your profile icon, if you've set one already, or a silhouette of a head and shoulders if you haven't. Select that and it will take you to a screen with an overview of your account. The uppermost option here, if your email is not already verified, will say "Verify your email" next to an icon of an open envelope with a checkmark on it.

Select that. It may ask you to enter the email address you want to be verified, or it may have already populated the field with an address associated with your account but that is not yet verified.

You will also see, below the field for the address, the words "Let others find me using my email address" next to a green check mark. If you have privacy concerns about sharing your Snapchat with anyone who may have your email address, you may want to uncheck this before continuing.

Once you have the email you want to be verified, select "Save" at the bottom of the screen.

At this point, Snapchat will send an email to the address you entered. Inside will be a link that says "Confirm Email." Just select that, and you're done.

If you don't see the email, you can return to the "Verify your email" subsection and select "Resend verification email" to prompt the system to try again.

The Purpose of Snapchat

Snapchat is admittedly different from other social media platforms. Networks like Facebook or Instagram might be described as being similar to a photo album or a diary. They are ways to preserve memories, to have something to show people to say "this is the kind of person I am" or want to be seen to be.

Snapchat has a different goal. Despite being based on photos, Snapchat is not meant to be similar to a photo album. It is meant to be like a conversation: momentary, immediate, and by its very nature, specific only to the people participating in it. The idea is that this makes it, as a mode of communication, more like face-to-face interaction than other forms of social media can be.

Take and Customize Snaps

Taking a photo in Snapchat is very simple, it should look very similar to the camera app interface that comes installed on your phone, that you're already used to using. But there are a few functions that ought to be explained.

Once you've taken a photo, you can select the three dots in the upper right corner to open a menu where you'll find all the options for editing your photo: adding stickers, filters, and messages. When you've finished with these, or if you just want to send the photo as-is, you can select the blue button, with a "Play" arrow, in the bottom right to send the photo.

When you do, you'll be given a list of Snapchat contacts, as well as "My Story." You can select the contacts you want to send the Snap to, or select "My Story," at the top, to send it to all your followers.

You can use both photos taken on Snapchat and photos taken with your phone's camera to build the Snaps you send to friends and followers. To upload a photo from your phone to Snapchat, select the small icon at the bottom center, directly under the camera shutter button. This will open the "Memories" section, with the two options "Snaps" and "Camera Roll." If you select "Camera Roll" you'll see a scrollable selection of photos on your phone. Select the one you want to send as a snap, and then you can use the same options menu and send button that you would use for a photo taken on Snapchat itself. You can also use the "Snaps" section to download photos you've taken to your phone's photo gallery.

How to Set Snap Time Limits

Snapchat lets users choose how long viewers can look at their photos and messages before they expire and disappear, and this can be a useful privacy tool. To set this, take a photo in the app or load a photo from your phone camera, as you normally would. Select 'Edit,' and you'll see a column of icons on the right side of the image.

The bottom one should look like a stopwatch showing either a number from three to ten or an infinity symbol. This is the current set duration of the photos and videos the app is going to send. Select it, and you'll open a menu that lets you scroll down to select the number of seconds after opening the Snap that your recipient will have to see the photo before it disappears. The shortest is three seconds, and the longest is ten, with one exception.

If you select the infinity symbol, then a recipient can look at the picture or message for an unlimited amount of time. Note that this does not make the photo permanent. It will still disappear and be inaccessible to them once again after they back out from it, close Snapchat, or in any other way navigate away from this Snap. Your photos will still only be visible a single time, they simply won't vanish automatically.

If you ever accidentally send or display a picture in your Story section that you regret, you can delete it. Go to the 'Stories' tab, select 'Your Story', find the offending picture, then swipe up and tap the garbage can to delete it.

Privacy Concerns

It's important to acknowledge that over the life cycle of the social media platform, there have been many privacy concerns raised about Snapchat as a service. One such breach of privacy was back in 2019 when Snapchat admins were caught spying on users' private snaps.

While it may seem that, because photos and videos automatically disappear either when their set time expires or when the viewer closes them, apps and functions outside Snapchat that take screenshots of whatever the screen is currently displaying are commonly available and easy to use. Most smartphones have a screenshot function built-in. The result is an image saved to the viewer's phone, over which Snapchat has no control, and the viewer can then post wherever they like.

The practice is so common that some businesses that use Snapchat as a marketing tool have been known to send snaps in advance of an announcement, telling users in advance they will want to screenshot an upcoming snap. There have been controversies where Snapchat users have alleged their privacy was violated using this method, and that images of them were screenshotted and spread without their consent.

So if Snapchat ever notifies you that another user has taken a screenshot of your snap, you need to consider the context. Is it innocent? Is it someone close and trusted? If not, you may wish to limit what you send to that person, or remove them from your friends list altogether.

Under Settings, View My Story you can also limit who gets to see things posted on your Story page. If you use this feature, you may wish to set who can read your Story to 'My Friends Only'.

You can do the exact same thing for 'Who Can Contact Me' in Settings if you wish to have a very tight contact policy. And to avoid getting added by friends-of-friends, the last Setting to change is 'See Me in Quick Add'. Make sure this option is turned off.

How to Delete Snapchat

So for these reasons, it would be perfectly understandable if you decided you wanted to delete Snapchat. But in order to explain how to delete Snapchat, we need to make a distinction between deleting Snapchat, the app on your device, and deleting your Snapchat account.

Deleting the app is fairly simple, and can be done in whatever way you uninstall programs from your device. If you are deleting Snapchat because you simply don't wish to use it anymore, then that should be sufficient.

But doing this will not delete your account, which still has all your personal information saved. You could resume using Snapchat by simply downloading the app again and logging back in.

If you have privacy concerns, then you might need to delete your Snapchat Account. Note that you cannot do this from a mobile device. You will need a desktop computer with internet access.

Backup Your Personal Info

Deleting a Snapchat account, to clear all your followers, files, and personal information is more complicated.

First, you may want to download your personal data, so you can back up anything you might wish to save. To do this you'll need to have verified the email address on the account. Go to the website Accounts.snapchat.com, and log in. It will ask you to verify this login attempt. It does this by sending a verification code to your email. Copy the code to the website, and confirm it's you.

Once you are looking at your account page, you should see "My Data." Select that, and you'll go to a page that explains what data is in your Snapchat account, and what information it knows. This lists everything that will go away when you delete your account, and which will be sent to you to back up. Scroll to the bottom of this and you should see "Submit Request."

If you select that, you should receive a copy of all the data in your Snapchat account, usually in the form of a .Zip file, at the same email address where you received your verification code. This process is automated and usually immediate. At most, it should take 24 hours. You can look through this at your leisure, delete anything you don't need, and save what you do. But once you have received this, or if you decide it's not important enough to wait for, it is now safe to proceed with deleting your account.

How to Delete a Snapchat Account

Go back to Accounts.snapchat.com. Scroll down to the bottom of the screen, and you'll see three columns of links. In the middle one, "Community," select "Support."

This will bring up a menu. Select "My Account and Security," next to the icon of a head and shoulders, third from the top. Select the top option in the My Account and Security sub-menu, which will be "Account Information."

Then in the Account Information sub-menu, select "Delete My Account," second from the bottom. This will take you to a screen explaining the process from Snapchat's point of view. At the bottom of this, it will ask you to re-enter your username and password to confirm you really intend to delete your account. Then select "Continue."

Reactivating a Snapchat Account

At this point, your account will be deactivated for a thirty-day period. At any point during this period, you can reactivate your account, and stop the deletion, by simply logging back in, with your username and password, on any device. This will bring up a screen asking you to confirm that you want to reactivate your account. Select "Yes" and your account will be back as it always was.

If you select no, or simply don't log in at any point in the thirty-day period, then at the end of thirty days your account will be fully deleted. You should get an email, at the address you verified, notifying you that it is gone. After this point, it will not be possible to restore the account.