When people make Snapchat private, only the friends they have added can communicate with them, see their stories, and receive their snaps. This is easy to do in the settings of your account. You can go to your profile page and make your settings private by scrolling to “Contact me” and selecting “My friends,” choose “View my Story” and select “My friends,” and turn Quick Add off. Once you do this, only people you have chosen as your friends will be able to contact you. Continue reading to learn how to know if a Snapchat is private.
You Won’t Be Able to Use QuickAdd
One of the features that Snapchat has is called QuickAdd. When you are on Snapchat, a number of users will show up in this list and you can add them as friends. Snapchat updates this list of suggestions based on your current friends list, your friends’ friends, and your activities. If you have a friend who is friends with others, they often appear in this QuickAdd area. If your friend is not there, it is possible that he or she has a private account.
QuickAdd is a feature that only works when someone has a public account. You can’t QuickAdd a person who has a private account. However, people can disable this feature without making their Snapchat private.
Check Their Stories
When people make their Snapchat private, other people won’t be able to see their stories. They can choose whether to share their stories with friends, everyone, or a custom group of people. If you click on someone and are unable to see their story, it is likely that they have made their account private. You will have to send a request to see their story.
People who are your friend can also make private stories that they share with a select group of people. If you are seeing someone’s story, you can check your friends. You will see those friends who have posted stories across the top. Look for a lock symbol on the story. This means that you are in a private story and only people that your friend selected can view the story.
You can remove yourself from a private story by clicking and holding the story until you get a pop-up. You can then select a story and it will disappear. Snapchat won’t notify your friend that you left but if they check the list of people on the story, your name will no longer appear.
Try to Send a Message
People can choose who is allowed to contact them on Snapchat and when they make their accounts private, they often limit who can contact them. People can choose to only be contacted by their friends. Others allow anyone to send them a message. If someone has a private account, you will not be able to send messages to the person unless you are friends with them.
It is important to understand the privacy settings in Snapchat because unless someone makes their account private, anyone can randomly add their username by chance. It is hard to know who people are if they find you on Snapchat. Sometimes people make their account private for safety but they might still allow messages. Other times, they have their accounts completely private so that you are unable to find them at all.
If you are friends with a person, you can always ask them if their account is private and they can send you a request if you are unable to find them. If you don’t know them, it is possible for them to make the account completely private so that nobody is able to find them. It is also possible to make a customized list of who can view stories.
If someone has blocked you, you will not be able to contact them so trying the methods above will let you know that you are no longer connected.