Through adding location filters to your snaps, you can share your location with your mates on Snapchat but that's not all you can do.
What Is Snapchat's Snap Map?
Snapchat's Snap Map is an interactive map which you can use to share with friends your place. If they share their location with you, you can see friends too. If your friends have their Bitmoji account integrated with Snapchat, then their Bitmoji characters will appear on the map at their place.
The Snap Map also has a "Our Story" community-based feature, which allows you to add your own snaps from a location to a collection of stories for that particular location. So when someone goes to view the collection of stories from the Snap Map, they will see all the snaps from every person who has contributed to Our Story for that platform.
How to Access Snap Map on the Snapchat App
There are three ways to get the Snap Map on the Snapchat app for iOS and Android.
- Tap a friend's picture on the Friends tab. If they're sharing their location, you'll see a preview image below their name on their profile. Tap it to open the Snap Map.
- Pull down on the Camera screen.
How to Use Snap Map on the Snapchat App
Now that you know how to access the Snap Map, you can start using it. Here are all the different ways you can take advantage of it.
- See your friends' locations: Friends who've chosen to share their location with you will appear on the Snap Map. Tap on a friend to instantly start a chat with them, or tap and hold to go to their profile.
- Search for a friend's location: Wondering where in the world a friend might be? Tap Search at the top of the screen to look for a specific friend on the map.
- Use the heat map to see snaps other people have shared: Use your finger to drag the map around and look for the splashes of color on the map, which shows where people are snapping from. Blue means there are just a few snaps, while red means a lot of activity is happening there. Tap a colored area to view the snaps shared from there.
- View Stories for hot spots: Scouting out the colored portions of the map will reveal story collections for popular locations and events. Tap a popular part of the map first to reveal the circular story collection, and then tap the story collection to view the stories added to it.
- Add your snaps to Our Story: If you're snapping from a location with its own story collection, you can select Our Story from the Send To tab after taking a snap. You can also tap +Custom at the top of the Send To tab to create your own Geo Story, which allows you to share it with people nearby.
How to Use the Snap Map from the Web
The Snap Map can be downloaded from the Snapchat website. Just like using your finger to move the map to the mobile app, you can use your cursor to pick and drag the map to other places. You can also zoom in and out using your keyboard or trackpad.
Select a colored portion or any circular story collection that appears to view snaps. A window will pop up over the map and will automatically play all the snaps shared by people in that specific location.
How to Change Your Location Settings in Snapchat
If you ever want to change your location settings at a later time:
- Tap your profile icon in the top left corner, and then tap the gear icon in the top right to access your settings. Scroll down to the Who Can section and tap See My Location.
2. On the following Settings tab, you can customize the settings.
- My Friends lets anyone you're friends with on Snapchat see you on the map.
- My Friends, Except lets you exclude anyone from your list of Snapchat contacts.
- Only These Friends is where you hand-pick who from your connections can see you on the map.
3. Tap the Ghost Mode button to turn the feature on. When Ghost Mode is enabled, nobody will be able to see your location — not even your friends. A menu will appear that will let you set a time limit of three or 24 hours for Ghost Mode or keep it on indefinitely.
4. Snapchat will save your changes automatically.
