Do you have some recent conversations you want to delete? Or, do you want to delete your recent search history? Thankfully, like other popular social media platforms, Snapchat also offers an easy way to clear Snapchat recents and search history in a few taps. This post shares how to clear recent conversations and search history on Snapchat.
What are Snapchat recents?
Recents are a list of Snapchat activities that happened in the app. It can be the old conversations you had with your friends or it can be recent chats with your best friends on the app. Recents also include your search history. It can be other various things you did on the app. Clearing recents thus means that you remove the traces from the app.
Before jumping into the step instructions below, clearing recents will only delete the past records and will not remove new actions such as new chat or new search.
How to Clear Recents on Snapchat
Let’s learn how to clear your various recent activities. We will cover how you can clear recent conversations, search history, and scan history. The steps here are the same for iOS and Android. Overall, the steps from 1 to 3 are the same since all your recent history can be managed under the same place.
How to clear recent conversations
You can delete previous conversations you had with your friends.
- Open the Snapchat app.
- Tap the Settings icon (gear icon) at the top right corner like the image below.
- Scroll down to find “Clear Data” in the Privacy Controls section.
- Select “Clear Conversations”.
- You will see a list of previous conversations. Tap “x” next to the conversations you want to clear. Select “Clear” to confirm.
How to clear recent search history
If you want to clear recent search history on the app, follow the steps below.
- Open the Snapchat app.
- Tap the Settings icon (gear icon) at the top right corner.
- Scroll down to find “Clear Data” in the Privacy Controls section.
- Scroll down and tap “Clear Search History”.
- Select “Clear”.
How to clear recent scan history
Snappers use Snapcodes (QR codes) to make new friends, access Lenses, link to websites, view exclusive contents, and more. Snapchat leaves scan history for your convenience. To remove scan history, follow these simple steps below.
- Open the Snapchat app.
- Tap the Settings icon (gear icon) at the top right corner.
- Scroll down to find “Clear Data” in the Privacy Controls section.
- Scroll down and tap “Clear Scan History”.
- Tap “OK”.
How to clear voice scan history
When you search lenses, you can use your voice to input search text. If you want to remove the history that shows your voice search records, follow the steps.
- Open the Snapchat app.
- Tap the Settings icon (gear icon) at the top right corner.
- Scroll down to find “Clear Data” in the Privacy Controls section.
- Scroll down and tap “Clear Voice Scan History”.
- Tap “OK”.
How to clear cache
If you want to delete metadata, you can clear cache. This will not delete important data such as saved photos, videos, chat, memories, and others. This removes un-important data only. To clear cache, follow the easy steps below.
- Open the Snapchat app.
- Tap the Settings icon (gear icon) at the top right corner.
- Scroll down to find “Clear Data” in the Privacy Controls section.
- Scroll down and tap “Clear Cache”.
- Tap “Clear”.
How to clear recent shopping history
Users can delete shopping history that contains what they browse on the mobile app. To remove the history:
- Open the Snapchat app.
- Tap the Settings icon (gear icon) at the top right corner.
- Scroll down to find “Clear Data” in the Privacy Controls section.
- Scroll down and tap “Clear Shopping History”.
- Tap “OK”
How to clear recent sticker searches
You can clear your sticker search records.
- Open the Snapchat app.
- Tap the Settings icon (gear icon) at the top right corner.
- Scroll down to find “Clear Data” in the Privacy Controls section.
- Scroll down and tap “Clear Sticker Searches”.
- Tap “Clear”
How to clear recent my AI data
Snapchat introduced AI bot that can answer your questions on the app. You can also clear the chat history with the AI.
- Open the Snapchat app.
- Tap the Settings icon (gear icon) at the top right corner.
- Scroll down to find “Clear Data” in the Privacy Controls section.
- Scroll down and tap “Clear My AI Data”.
- Tap “Confirm”
How to clear old Snaps and Chats?
So, we learned that we can delete various recent activities. You may wonder if you manually have to delete old Snaps and old Chats or if Snapchat does it automatically.
The answer is Snapchat takes care of it.
Snaps
When all recipients view Snaps, Snapchat automatically deletes all of them. If Snaps stay unopened beyond 30 days, Snapchat automatically removes them. Also, if Snaps are sent to a Group Chat and unopened beyond 24 hours, they are deleted automatically as well.
Chats
The messages exchanged in one-on-one Chats will be automatically deleted when both people have opened and left the Chat. You can change this setting to deleting after 24 hours. For this, go to Chat Settings and change the erase rules.
Like Snaps, Snapchat will remove all unopened messages after 30 days.
One tip! You can save a Chat by pressing and holding on to the message. When you save the Chats, they will appear on a grey background. If you want to unsave them, simply press and hold.
Downloading Snapchat messages before deleting
When you delete recents, you will not be able to recover them. It may be a good idea to back up your old messages before deleting them.
How to download my data on Snapchat
- Open the Snapchat app.
- Tap the Settings icon (gear icon) at the top right corner.
- Scroll down to find “My Data” in the privacy controls section and tap “My Data”
- It will ask you to log into Snapchat again.
- You can select your data including user information, chat history, shopping history, and more. Once selected, tap “Next”
- On the next page, confirm the history date range and email address you want to receive a link to download.
- Snapchat will send you an email with a link to all types of your Snapchat history you selected.
Why do you want to delete recents on Snapchat?
Deleting recents on Snapchat, such as clearing your chat history or removing recent conversations, can offer several benefits:
- Privacy:
- Clearing your chat history helps maintain a level of privacy. If you share your device with others or are concerned about someone seeing your recent conversations, deleting recents ensures that your chats remain confidential.
- Organization:
- Keeping your chat list tidy and removing conversations that are no longer relevant or necessary can make it easier to find and manage ongoing chats. This is particularly helpful if you have a large number of contacts.
- Reduced Clutter:
- Over time, your chat list can become cluttered with conversations, making it challenging to locate specific chats quickly. Deleting recents allows you to declutter your Snapchat interface, providing a cleaner and more organized user experience.
- Faster Navigation:
- A cleaner chat list can result in faster navigation through the app. If you frequently use Snapchat to communicate with friends or colleagues, removing unnecessary recents can streamline your interactions.
- Storage Management:
- Snapchat stores chat data locally on your device. Deleting recents can help in managing storage space on your device, particularly if you exchange a large number of multimedia messages, which can take up storage over time.
- Reduced Data Usage:
- Clearing your chat history may contribute to slightly reduced data usage since the app doesn’t need to store and load as much chat-related data.
Think again before posting that Snap
We often leave unwanted traces online and we want to delete them. You could make a mistake on Snapchat like sending a message to the wrong person or posting something that is not supposed to be shared by people. Even if Snapchat provides ways to delete conversations, search history, Snaps, Chats, scans, and cache, by the time you are deleting them, it might be too late. You cannot delete someone’s memory.
This might result in losing your Snapchat friends. If you want to check if someone has unfriended you or if you want to know don’ts on Snapchat, check out another post about Snapchat.
Conclusion
We learned how to clear recent conversations and search history on Snapchat and more. The steps described above should be straightforward. This post also shared how Snaps and Chats are deleted on Snapchat. These are all useful features. However, deleted messages will not be recoverable. So, clear the right recent conversations or history (and Chats and Snaps too!).
If you want to know more about Snapchat tips, check these posts:
