If you use Snapchat, you might want to know which of your friends are online. This is one of the most common questions that people ask. You might want to talk to your friend or find out if they are ignoring you. Snapchat doesn’t have a feature that tells you who is online, so you have to do some investigating. This may be frustrating at first, but luckily, there are a few things you can do. Once you finish your detective work, you should be able to determine whether they are online or not.
Check Snap Maps to See Who Is Active
The Snap Maps feature shows you where your friends are while they are using the app. People can block this feature by using Ghost Mode. Ghost Mode will hide their location at all times. Just remember that users can turn their location off so that Snapchat doesn’t have the ability to know where they are. However, if your friend has this feature turned on, Snap Maps will show that they are active and where they are.
When people leave their location settings on, Snap Maps will regularly update their locations. You can limit who can see where you are, but many people leave this information available for their friends. You can go to Snap Maps and look for the person to see if they are online. Under the name, it will say when they were last online. If it says “Just Now,” they are currently online using the app.
Send the Person a Snap
Another way to find out if someone is online on Snapchat is to send a message. If you send a quick message, you will be able to see if they read it. It will show as read and tell you the time when the person read it. Snapchat adds a timestamp to all sent and read snaps. It will tell you the time for up to 24 hours, and beyond that, it will just tell you what day something is read.
Once you send the snap, you can check the timestamp. Get the chats up by swiping right, and then scroll to your chat with this person. If they have read the message, you will see an empty square or an arrow depending on what you sent. Next to it, it will says “opened” and tell you when it was viewed. It might say 11s for 11 seconds or 2 min for 2 minutes. If your snap is read, then you know that the person is online receiving snaps.
Check the Person’s Snapscore
The snapscore is related to the number of snaps a person has sent. This includes private snaps and stories. If you look at the person’s snapscore and see it increase, that means they have just sent a snap. You can go to your friends list, and then tap the avatar of the person whose snapscore you want to check. The snapscore will be listed under the person’s name. It does take a few minutes to update, so you might want to give it a minute and check it again. You need to check it a few times to see if it increases. If they are online, it likely will.
Sometimes people send snaps to another person, and they don’t get a response. This can lead anyone to wonder if they are online. Some social media sites make it easy to find out, but with Snapchat, it takes some detective work. If your friend deleted you, uses Ghost Mode or denies location tracking to Snapchat, there is no way to find them on Snap Maps. Your best bet is to send a snap and wait to see if it is opened or to check their snapscore to see if they are sending any out. If you don’t see any activity, it is likely that they are not online.