If you’re into the world of social media, you’re probably using Snapchat, the incredibly popular chat and messaging app that deletes your messages and pictures after a while. A common question users have about Snapchat is what the blue dot is for. This is a small dot that sometimes appears in your chat messages.
The blue dot appeared during a chat interface overhaul a few years ago. A small blue dot appeared just above the line where the text you typed appears. Sometimes it turns into a smiley emoji. Sometimes it disappears completely. Why? What is this for?
blue dot on snapchat
There are two blue dots in the Snapchat app. The first is on the Snapchat icon on your phone’s home screen. This is to say the app has just been updated. That’s not the blue dot we’re talking about. The blue dot this article is about is in the chat app itself.
According to Snapchat themselves, the blue dot indicates you’re chatting with someone. It’s like a sign that they’re there with you and paying attention to the conversation.
When the blue dot turns into a smiley, it means he wrote a reply or is actively looking at your Snap. When both the dot and the smiley disappear, it means that person is no longer in conversation with you. They continued. (Maybe you should too!)
That’s all for the blue dot mystery. But what other Snapchat tricks don’t get the publicity they deserve?
Other things you didn’t know about Snapchat
If you’re new to Snapchat or haven’t really discovered the app, there are a few things you might not know you can do with the social network. Here are just a few of them. Keep in mind that Snapchat changes its UI as often as the rest of us change socks, so the exact location of some of these icons may change.
Tap the clock icon to change the lifetime of your Snap
Snapshots take 10 seconds by default, but you can change this if you tap the little clock icon on the right side of the screen after taking a photo or video. You can set it to anywhere between 1 and 10 seconds or infinite if you don’t want your snapshots to disappear.
Save your Snap before posting
If you’ve found a particularly good Snap that you don’t want to get lost in the ether, save it to your phone first. Tap the small down arrow at the bottom left of the Snap window. Then you can download and save it before publishing.
Supersize text or emoji
I didn’t know how to do this until someone showed me. While adding text or emoji to your Snap, press T to enlarge it. Use your fingers to pinch or spread it to make it bigger or smaller. You can rotate too.
change font color
Once it gets bigger, you can change the font color on Snapchat. When you enlarge your text, tap the text again and the color bar will appear in the upper right corner of the screen.
Hidden Snapchat colors on iPhone
If you are an iPhone user, you may notice that there is no black and white color for text. Tap the palette and drag your finger to the upper left corner to get white. Drag your finger down to get black. Other colors will appear when you drag your finger up or down the screen.
Use lenses to stand out
Take a selfie and hold a fingertip on your screen until Snapchat Lenses appears. Play around a bit and find a lens that gives the effect you’re looking for. Some are pretty cool.
Use video instead of photos
Create a 10-second video GIF by holding down the camera button while on Snapchat. It will record a short video that you can use as a snap. If you don’t like what you see, drag it to the ‘X’ to delete it and start over.
Variable speed videos
You can change the speed of your video Snaps by looking at the speed options in the filters. You can slow down, speed up and return to normal speed.
FaceTime with Snapchat
Snapchat has a FaceTime-like feature for video calling. Tap the video button in the chat window to make a video call with that person. They will be able to see you even without accepting the call, but once they do, it’s alive.
See how many people viewed your story
If you use Snapchat’s My Story mode, you can see how many people watched in the last 24 hours by looking at the small icons in the Stories window. The purple eye shows how many people viewed it, and the green arrow shows how many people took the screenshot.
Got any other tips and tricks for getting the most out of Snapchat? Share them with us below!
