Snapchat Stories allow you to tell the story of your day, adding photos and 10 second videos that are public to your Snapchat followers for 24 hours before disappearing forever. The feature was so good, Facebook copied the idea into every single network and app they own (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp).
Unfortunately, there is a pretty big flaw in Snapchat’s strategy: their app just isn’t all that easy to learn or use. It can take time to get used to, with a steep learning curve that can befuddle newer users to the platform. Even something as simple as viewing your own story can be a confusing mess if you aren’t used to how the platform works.
Thankfully, we here at TechJunkie are pretty much Snapchat experts, with knowledge of every tip and trick in the Snapchat book. If you’re curious about how to view your own story on Snapchat, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s take a look at this how-to guide.
Viewing Your Story
You’ve created a Snapchat Story, and now you want to view it or show someone else. It is actually rather simple to view your Story, but it does take a few steps.
- Open the Snapchat App on your phone and tap on your circle icon in the upper left-hand corner.
- Tap on your Story. It will automatically begin to play.
You can now watch your Story as many times as you’d like. Whether you’re just enjoying your own content, showing it off to those around you, or you’re trying to see how successful your Story is, Snapchat’s Stories have a lot to offer.
Who Else Viewed Your Story
When you load the page to see your Story, you may notice an eye icon. This will actually tell you how many views (and who exactly viewed) your Story. No, it won’t tell you if the same person viewed your Story more than once. It merely shows you who watched it.
All you need to do to see who viewed your Story is to open it and swipe up from the bottom. A list of viewers will appear.
Snapchat Story Timer
As you may already know, your Snapchat Story is only available for viewing for 24 hours. Way back in 2017, Snapchat offered a helpful timer to show you how much time was left before your Story expired. In 2020, this timer isn’t available.
But, if you look at your Story, you can still see how long it has been active. From seconds to hours, open your story and look in the upper left-hand corner.
How to View Your Expired Stories
Now, you may be concerned that once your Story expires, you won’t be able to view it. Fortunately, Snapchat does have a Memories feature that saves your Story for you (and only you) to view later on. Here’s how it works:
Snapchat will save your Stories by default (in most cases) so there really aren’t any steps that you need to take to save them. You can access your Memories from the home screen (the recording screen) within Snapchat.
All you need to do is locate the double-card icon to the left of the record button.
A new screen will appear. Select ‘Stories’, then ‘My Story’. Your old Snapchat Stories will appear at the top.
Using the Memories feature you can re-watch expired Snaps, make edits, and send them to contacts. Let’s review a few things you can do with Snapchat Memories.
Delete Snapchat Memories
Perhaps there is something you posted that you really don’t care for anymore. All you need to do is follow the steps above to locate the Snap you’d like to delete and tap on it.
In the upper right-hand corner, tap the three vertical dots and click “Delete Snap.” Confirm when prompted and your Story will no longer appear in your Memories.
If you’re unsure whether you’d like to keep the Story or not, you can tap on the option to add it to a special folder that you need a pin to access. The ‘My Eyes Only’ folder is accessible on the same page as your Memories. Just tap the folder in the upper right-hand corner and input your pin number.
Edit Your Memories and Re-Publish Them
If your original Story didn’t get enough engagement, or it’s something you want to publish again, Memories let’s you make edits and re-post. All you need to do is click on the double card icon next to the record button and tap on the Story you want to edit.
Once open, tap on the three vertical dots in the upper right-hand corner and select ‘Edit Snap.’
From here you can add text, crop your Story, add Stickers, and more. Once your edits are complete, simply tap the arrow icon in the lower right-hand corner and re-post your Story or send it to a friend.
Turn Off Auto-Save
Perhaps you don’t want every Snap Story saved to your Memories. Perhaps, you’d like the option to choose which ones to save or even to save them to the ‘My Eyes Only’ folder.
Fortunately, Snapchat gives you this freedom.
All you need to do is head to Settings within the app. You can access this by tapping the circle icon in the upper left-hand corner and tapping the Settings cog in the upper right-hand corner.
When the menu appears, tap ‘Memories,’ and toggle your options on and off as you see fit.
Save Your Snap Story
As mentioned above, Snapchat will usually save your Story to Memories automatically. But, if it doesn’t, you can manually save your Story while it is active.
All you need to do is head back over to your Profile page and tap on your Story. Tap on the three vertical dots in the upper right-hand corner and select ‘Save.’
Head back over to your Memories and your Story will appear.
Adding to Your Story
Most users will add snaps to their stories directly from their camera interface when they’ve captured a snap, but every now and then you forget to add a snap to your story when you’ve sent it to others. If you want to sidestep this, there’s a way to add a snap directly to your story when you’ve captured it. To start, head to the Stories tab inside of Snapchat and tap on the middle gray icon we haven’t discussed yet. This will redirect you to your Snapchat camera interface, but instead of the traditional icons at the bottom of the screen, you’ll simply see a back arrow at the bottom right.
Capture the content, photo, or video you’re looking to add to your story, and you’ll be direct to a traditional editing screen inside of Snapchat. The difference here is major, though—at the bottom of your screen, you’ll notice that “My Story” is already selected as a recipient of your snap, meaning as soon as you hit Send, your Snap will be added to your story. This means you won’t be able to add friends to your snap by hitting the send arrow, so if you want to add people to receive your snap, tap on the display where it reads “Tap to add friends!” You can then send your snap, which will be added to your story and sent to any friends you’ve selected.
Creating a Custom Story
The final Stories feature worth covering is one of the newest additions. This past Spring, Snapchat added custom stories to your app, allowing you to create specific stories for events you want to share with a specific group or selection of people. Basically, you can use this to make sure only a certain group of people see your story. For example, if you’re at an event you only want to share with specific friends or colleagues, you can select certain contacts from your friend group and limit the rest of your connections from seeing that story.
Alternatively, you can use a geofenced area to share your story with anyone, whether you’re friends with them or not, as long as they’re in your fenced off area. Basically, this means your stories become public attractions for anyone at your event to look at. For example, if you’re at someone’s birthday party or graduation party, you can celebrate with everyone there, whether you’ve made connections with the people around you or not. This also allows friends of friends to contribute, so that nearby neighbors aren’t posting random stories unless they know of someone at your event.
To start these custom stories, head to the Stories tab inside of Snapchat and look at the top purple banner. At the top-right of your display, you’ll see a plus icon. Tapping on this icon will invite you to name your story (“Jenna’s Birthday Party!”, “Greg’s Graduation,” etc.). Once you’ve named your event, you’ll have the option to set your parameters for the security and privacy of your event. This includes an option geofence (turned off by default) that, when enabled, will show you a map of your location, along with an estimate of your current address (you can edit the name of your geofence, which defaults to your address, in order to hide your address from others). Geofence areas can’t be adjusted or moved—it’s centered around your current location.
Once you’ve decided whether or not you want a geofence, you can decide to set who can add and view the story. If you’re willing for everyone at your event to add and view, setting both to “Friends of Friends” is the best way to do it. This means that your contacts, plus all your contacts’ contacts can contribute and watch your story at once. If you want to keep things a bit more private, you can limit everything to just your circle of friends on both adding and viewing stories. You can also keep viewing to your friends of friends while setting contributions to just your friends if you want a happy medium between the two settings.
The story will appear as a featured story under your own story but above the postings of your friends. To watch your custom story, tap on the menu just as you would with anyone else’s posts.
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