Since its launch in 2011, Snapchat has become one of the most popular platforms for sharing photos and videos, along with Instagram and TikTok. Recent statistics reveal that there are more than 210 million daily active users on Snapchat. Snapchat’s unique photo filters, fleeting and disappearing chat messages, and general weirdness make it stand out, especially for the younger generation.
One of the key features of Snapchat from the very beginning was the idea that shared content and messaging would disappear 24 hours after being read by the recipient.
While the platform is no longer entirely faithful to that concept, and some content formats are archiveable, message privacy is still the app’s core promise. However, other Snapchat may try to make screen recordings of the snaps. This leads to the question whether the app can detect that another participant in a chat is recording anything within the app.
If you want to sneak a screenshot of someone’s Snap or make sure no one is archiving your messages, you might be interested in learning the answer to this crucial question.
In this article, we will discuss the various ways users try to breach Snapchat’s privacy system.
Does Snapchat Know You’re Screen Recording?
Snapchat was founded on the idea of being able to send disappearing messages, videos and pictures. This, of course, won’t work if people can take a screenshot of your messages.
That’s why the Snapchat app tries to detect the use of screen capture programs by the people using the app. If Snapchat detects a screenshot (from a shared image or a chat session), it places a notification icon in the chat log on the Friends page to alert other members of someone’s conversation. Screenshot of Snap.
There are three icons Snapchat uses to display this information.
The notification in the friends list has one of these icons and the word “Screenshot Taken”.
This could be a pretty effective deterrent to taking screenshots if it were completely reliable, but that’s not always the case.
The problem is: Snapchat’s detection of screenshots is spotty at best. Let’s take a look at the two platforms Snapchat is working on.
Screen Capture with Android
We often speak of “Android smartphones” as if they were just one type of machine running a single operating system. But in fact, there are many versions and editions of the Android operating system itself, coupled with literally thousands of different physical smartphones and tablets capable of running the Android operating system.
In addition to the wide variety of possible Android configurations, the Android operating system itself is quite extensive; any phone maker can launch their own fork of Android and drastically change the code they want (and that’s exactly what many phone makers have done).
On top of that, it’s extremely easy to write powerful apps on top of the Android operating system, and these apps usually have permission to do whatever they want on the device.
This means that Snapchat’s efforts to detect screenshots made on Android phones were basically doomed from the very beginning. The app can detect if the normal control combination (volume down + power button) used to trigger the screenshot is used, and detect if the embedded OS screenshot software is used. The problem is, there are literally hundreds of other ways an app can take a screenshot, and Snapchat finds it hard to detect every single one of them.
The bottom line is that it’s easy to take an undetected screenshot on an Android phone; It’s definitely a big gap.
Screen Capture with iPhone
Taking a screenshot with an iPhone, on the other hand, is a different story as Apple has full control over the iOS operating system. iOS itself is much more tightly controlled than Android.
This has the advantage of providing developers with a reliable and stable platform from which to publish applications. The downside, however, is that many functions that can be done on Android phones are difficult or even impossible to perform with an iPhone. Among these tasks: taking a screenshot, apart from using the official Apple screenshot program (which can detect Snapchat, naturally).
Older models of the iPhone can be cracked from the software jail that Apple has so carefully designed for its products, through a process known as jailbreak. Such a liberated iPhone can install apps from outside the official Apple ecosystem, including some apps that can take screenshots without being detected by Snapchat.
However, the latest models of iPhone are not jailbreakable, so there is essentially no easy software method to bypass Snapchat security on recent iPhone models.
Can I Screen Record On Snapchat Without Them Knowing?
If for some reason you want to take a screenshot of a Snapchat conversation/video without being detected, there are several ways to do it.
- Use another phone. The simplest and safest way is to use another phone to record your home phone’s screen. The quality won’t be perfect, but you can get a usable image by taking a photo of a phone screen.
- Go offline. Open the Snapchat app and find the post you want to screenshot. Wait until it loads completely, then turn off WiFi and mobile data. Also, put your phone in airplane mode to prevent it from reconnecting automatically. Take a screenshot and then go to System settings and find Snapchat in the Applications folder. Go to Snapchat’s Storage and clear both cache and data. Turn WiFi back on and log back into Snapchat. This only works on Android.
- fast time. This is for iPhone users. Install QuickTime on computer and connect your iPhone to it. Open QuickTime and select “File” then “New Movie Recording”. Hover the mouse over the record button and a menu with additional recording options will appear. Select your iPhone as the movie recording input.
- Google Assistant. This is for Android users. Open Snapchat and find the message or photo you want to save. After that enable Google Assistant and ask it to take a screenshot. Then save the screenshot to the cloud or upload it to Google Photos. You cannot save the screenshot to your phone’s gallery.
- use an app. There are many free third-party screenshot and screen recorder apps on Android or jailbroken iPhone. You can easily find someone bypassing Snapchat’s detection. Just install an app, take a screenshot of a conversation with a friend you’ve explained, and see if Snapchat detects the screenshot.
Solution
There’s a persistent conflict here between Snapchat’s desire for its apps to function in a particular social setting, and many Snapchat users’ desire to take screenshots of good content even though it undermines the app’s security policies.
Although Snapchat tries to block screenshots via in-app notifications, there are still ways to take screenshots on Snapchat without being detected by the app.
Have you found any other way to take Snapchat screenshot without being detected? Let us know in the comments below.
We have loads of Snapchat resources to help you get more out of your snaps.
Here’s our guide to editing text in a Snap after it’s posted.
We have more information about what the various expressions on Snapchat mean.
Here’s a walkthrough on what the numbers mean on Snapchat.
If you’re interested in privacy, check out our guide to creating a private story on Snapchat.
Too many stickers? We have a tutorial on getting rid of stickers on Snapchat.
