How To Tell if Someone Added You on Snapchat

When it comes to sending photos and videos quickly to your friends online, there’s no better social application than Snapchat. Whether you want to send a snap of you and your friends having a great time at a concert, or you’re looking to share your family vacation with your group of friends back home, Snapchat makes it easy to message and communicate on the go. The idea of temporary photos and videos is brilliant, and though it’s been copied (and, based on its use, copied well) by Instagram, some of us—especially younger users and early adopters—have stayed on Snapchat’s platform.

There’s a lot to be said about how important Snapchat is in the modern age of smartphones, but one thing’s for sure: the app is better when you actually have people on the platform who are following your content. Whether you’re sending the photos and videos through the direct messaging feature in the app, or you’re looking to try to post stories for people to look at during the twenty-four hour period that they’re available, Snapchat is truly built on being social with your own community.

It’s important that you build your following on the platform, filling your list with both friends and family members on the service. Whether you’re looking to become closer with the people you hang out with in real life, or you’re looking to catch up and follow friends from high school or college during summer vacation, building up your following on Snapchat is an absolute must.

Like on similar social networks, when you add someone on the platform, they’ll need to add you back in order to approve the connection, unless their account is set to public. But where exactly do you find these requests in order to approve them? Snapchat can be a confusing app. The UI has always been a little bit difficult to navigate. It’s  safe to say it’s not always clear where you should look to find certain pieces of information when you’re loading things on your profile. This can make it difficult to add and connect with your friends on the app.

If you’re trying to figure out if someone added you on Snapchat, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s take a look at adding people on Snapchat, where to find your friend requests, and how to add people back on Snapchat.

Sending Friend Requests

First things first: sending a friend request on Snapchat is actually surprisingly easy, thanks to the large number of ways you can actually add people through Snapchat. We have a whole guide on the various ways you can add people through the service, but here’s the short of it:

1. You can use a Snapcode, which allows you to scan or upload the Snapcode of one of your friends.
2. You can use the username of someone on your friends list to easily add them to your list of friends on the app.
3. If your friend has their phone number shared in your phone, you can give the app permission to scan and read your contacts, in order to properly sync your friends and make it easy to add them.
4. Using the share button on your profile page in Snapchat makes it easy to share your content with another person, just by sending them a link.
5. Finally, Snapchat has a friend suggestion option that makes it easy to see who is and isn’t suggested to you, based on proximity and who you know.

You can add a friend through any of these means, and they’re all pretty straightforward. Sending a request through the other person’s username, for example, will bring up their Bitmoji and a link to add them to your account. With the request sent, it’ll be up to the other person to respond to the friend request you sent. Even though you’re the person who sent the request in this step, it’s worth looking at where your requests ended up on the other line, so that if someone sends you a friend request, you know where it’s gone.

Locating Your Friend Requests

As long as you have notifications enabled on either iOS or Android, you’ll receive a notification when someone adds you on Snapchat. The easiest way to get to the request is to click on the notification, which will automatically lead you to the platform. Still, that’s not always as easy as it sounds, so if you’re trying to get there but you accidentally swiped the notification away or dismissed it, you’ll need to know how to get there in the first place.

To get to your list of friend requests, open the application, which, by default, opens on your smartphone to the camera viewfinder. In the app, start by tapping on the profile button in the top-left corner of the display. If you’ve set up a Bitmoji, this will be your Bitmoji.

This action loads the profile display, which allows you to view all the options with your profile. In the middle of the display, you’ll find an option that allows you to add friends on your device. Press this option, and you’ll not only view the “Quick Add” list of possible friends but can also accept or deny any friend requests you’ve received. You can even see how they added you, which is a good way to figure out whether or not the person who added you is a friend or a possible spam account, which Snapchat has plenty of thanks to the ease of adding people through usernames.

Responding to Friend Requests

So, from the page that features your friend request, you can either accept or deny a request. Accepting is easy since there’s a big button that says accept right on the display, allowing you to approve the friend request and to start sharing content with your new friend on the platform.

However, there’s no easy way to deny a friend request—or at least, it would seem so. While the “Accept” button is large, front, and center, the ability to turn away someone is far less obvious. Don’t let anyone fool you, though, because not only is it actually there, but it’s quite easy.

If you’re looking to deny a friend request, simply press and hold on the username in the list of friend requests on the device. You’ll gain access to a list of new settings, include an option to “Ignore Friend Request.” You can also share the username of the person who added you if that’s something you need to do.

Finally, if you feel like the person who added you might harass you, or they keep adding you again and again, you can press the Settings option to open a whole new display, with the ability to block the person who added you completely on Snapchat. This will hide your activity and your existence on the platform from them completely, which is a great idea if you’d rather the person not be able to add you back on the platform.

For the most part, though, you’ll likely be accepting and approving friend requests on Snapchat. Once you hit accept, you’ll see an icon that says “Snap” next to the username of the new person, allowing you to send something to your new friend. And if you dive into the chat list inside Snapchat and refresh, you’ll see your new friend appear at the top of the page, ready to be messaged, snapped, and communicated with. You can always block this person if you added them by mistake.

Someone Added Me, But Now It’s Gone

Here’s the deal: if you received a notification that someone added you on Snapchat, only to dive into the list of added friends in the app to find no new friend requests pending, there’s a simple reason why. Thanks to that quick-add list, there’s a good chance that you’ve accidentally been added, and the person who added you cancelled their request immediately. Maybe they don’t know you in real life, or maybe they’re shy, but for whatever reason, that person changed their mind after accidentally adding you.

Like when someone mistakenly likes or super likes you on Tinder, there’s very little shame in accidentally sending a friend request to someone on social media. We’ve all done it, and if you’re fast enough to erase it, you can even make sure it never affects you again.

So the next time a notification goes missing on you, don’t fret—it was likely a mistake or mis-click, not a personal attack.

***

Snapchat can be a confusing mess of an app, but adding and approving friend requests is actually pretty simple once you know where to look. While it isn’t the easiest app to learn in the world, it’s a solid choice for anyone looking to share photos or videos with the people they love most in the world. So, get out there and get some new friends on Snapchat—and make sure to check out our list of the top 25 highest Snapchat streaks.