How to View Your Own Story on Snapchat

Snapchat Stories allow you to tell the story of your day, adding photos and 10 second videos that are public to your Snapchat followers for 24 hours before disappearing forever. The feature was so good, Facebook copied the idea into every single network and app they own (Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp).

Unfortunately, there is a pretty big flaw in Snapchat’s strategy: their app just isn’t all that easy to learn or use. It can take time to get used to, with a steep learning curve that can befuddle newer users to the platform. Even something as simple as viewing your own story can be a confusing mess if you aren’t used to how the platform works.

Thankfully, we here at TechJunkie are pretty much Snapchat experts, with knowledge of every tip and trick in the Snapchat book. If you’re curious about how to view your own story on Snapchat, you’ve come to the right place. Let’s take a look at this how-to guide.

Viewing Your Story

You’ve created a Snapchat Story, and now you want to view it or show someone else. It is actually rather simple to view your Story, but it does take a few steps.

1. Open the Snapchat App on your phone and tap on your circle icon in the upper left-hand corner.
   
   
   
2. Tap on your Story. It will automatically begin to play.
   
   

You can now watch your Story as many times as you’d like.

Story Metrics, Settings, and Customization

Whether you’re just enjoying your own content, showing it off to those around you, or you’re trying to see how successful your Story is, Snapchat’s Stories have a lot to offer. The following sections will include instructions on how to use the various functions of Snapchat’s stories.

Who Else Viewed Your Story

When you load the page to see your Story, you may notice an eye icon. This will actually tell you how many views (and who exactly viewed) your Story. No, it won’t tell you if the same person viewed your Story more than once. It merely shows you who watched it.

1. Open your story as discussed above and swipe up from the bottom.
   
   
   
2. A list of viewers will appear.
   
   

Snapchat Story Timer

As you may already know, your Snapchat Story is only available for viewing for 24 hours. If you look at your Story, you can still see how long it has been active. From seconds to hours, open your story and look in the upper left-hand corner.

How to View Your Expired Stories

Now, you may be concerned that once your Story expires, you won’t be able to view it. Fortunately, Snapchat does have a Memories feature that saves your Story for you (and only you) to view later on. Snapchat will save your Stories by default (in most cases) so there really aren’t any steps that you need to take to save them. You can access your Memories from the home screen (the recording screen) within Snapchat. Here’s how it works:

1. Locate the double-card icon to the left of the record button.
   
   
   
2. Select ‘Stories’, then ‘My Story’. Your old Snapchat Stories will appear at the top.
   
   

Using the Memories feature you can re-watch expired Snaps, make edits, and send them to contacts. Let’s review a few things you can do with Snapchat Memories.

Delete Snapchat Memories

Perhaps there is something you posted that you really don’t care for anymore. All you need to do is follow these steps:

1. Access the snap that you are wanting to delete by viewing your own story
   
   
   
2. In the upper right-hand corner, tap the three vertical dots.
   
   
   
3. Click “Delete Snap.” and Confirm when prompted and your Story will no longer appear in your Memories.
   
   

Edit Your Memories and Re-Publish Them

If your original Story didn’t get enough engagement, or it’s something you want to publish again, Memories let’s you make edits and re-post.

1. Find the snap you are wanting to republish in your memories.
   
   
   
2. Once open, tap on the three vertical dots in the upper right-hand corner and select ‘Edit Snap.’
   
   

From here you can add text, crop your Story, add Stickers, and more. Once your edits are complete, simply tap the arrow icon in the lower right-hand corner and re-post your Story or send it to a friend.

Turn Off Auto-Save

Perhaps you don’t want every Snap Story saved to your Memories. Perhaps, you’d like the option to choose which ones to save or even to save them to the ‘My Eyes Only’ folder. Fortunately, Snapchat gives you this freedom:

1. Tap the circle icon in the upper left-hand corner.
   
   
   
2. Tap the Settings cog in the upper right-hand corner.
   
   
   
3. Tap “Memories.”
   
   
   
4. Toggle your options on and off as you see fit.
   
   

Creating a Custom Story

The final Stories feature worth covering is one of the newest additions. Recently, Snapchat added custom stories to your app, allowing you to create promoted stories for events you want to share with a specific group or selection of people. Basically, you can use this to make sure only a certain group of people see your story. For example, if you’re at an event you only want to share with specific friends or colleagues, you can select certain contacts from your friend group and limit the rest of your connections from seeing that story.

Wrapping Up

Snapchat has plenty of customization and privacy features related to your stories. Hopefully you can utilize some of them. Do you have any tips, tricks or questions related to customizing your story on Snapchat?