Does Snapchat Notify you When Someone Views your Story?

The biggest feature, and perhaps the most important to the legacy of Snapchat, is the Story feature, which allows you to place photos and video snippets on your profile for your friends to view for up to 24 hours after. Due to the nature of Snapchat’s disappearing features, it’s normal to wonder whether or not you’ll get a notification when someone views your Story.

The Snapchat Story feature was a major hit for the social media giant. So much so, that other platforms copied the popular Stories. Snapchat Stories only live for 24 hours which means your followers and friends have a narrow window to catch your content.

The question of whether Snapchat will notify you about who watches your Story is a rather complicated question. Keep reading; in this article, we’ll teach you all about what Snapchat will let you see regarding your Stories.

Notifications Within Snapchat

Some popular social media platforms let you customize your notifications to the point you can mute some and set alerts for others. While Snapchat does give you some power over your notifications, it does not notify you when someone views your Story.

Although this may seem disappointing, there is still plenty you can do with Snapchat’s notifications to keep you up-to-date with everything Story related.

You may receive notifications about memories, birthdays, or other content, but when it comes to receiving notifications about who viewed your Story, expect your phone to stay silent. It’s an unfortunate missing feature, one we hoped would eventually make an appearance within the app, but unfortunately, it seems as though we’re out of luck for now.

So, despite the app notifying you when someone begins doing something as simple as typing, Snapchat’s menu for changing your notifications doesn’t include anything about Stories outside of receiving occasional notifications when your friends post Stories.

But don’t worry, there is still a lot you can learn about your friends’ investment in your Snap account from posting a Story.

How Do You See Who Viewed Your Story?

While you may not be able to receive notifications for who has viewed your story, you can still see who actually did view it. They may not push you a notification, but Snapchat does allow you to view which of your followers have and haven’t seen your story. It’s a really interesting idea for making this type of network feel a bit more personable, while also knowing exactly what actions people make while viewing your story.

While you won’t get any notifications for someone viewing your story twice like you will when someone replays a direct snap, you will receive a notification when someone’s screenshotted your story. Let’s take a look at how all this is done.

1. From the stories screen inside of Snapchat, find your story at the top of the page.
   
   
   
2. Tap the triple-dotted vertical line icon on the far-right side of your display.
   
   

This will drop down your story display, showing you each individual photo or video you’ve added to your story in the past twenty-four hours, plus any captions you’ve added to that story so as to identify which photo is which. On the far right of this screen, you’ll see purple icons in the shape of eyes, plus a number to the left. These icons and numbers represent the people who have viewed your story (in our example screenshot, forty-five people viewed the first snap, while forty-two people viewed the second).

It’s not good enough just to know the numbers, though—you need to know the names of who specifically has or hasn’t viewed your story. Snapchat allows you to do that too.

1. Tap on the eye-con from the display inside Stories.
   
   
   
2. This will open your photo or video playing in the background (if it’s a video, the sound will be muted), along with a list of the names that have viewed your story.
   
   

This list is in reverse-chronological order, with the top of your list showing you who most recently viewed your story, and the bottom of your list showing you who least recently viewed your story.

If any of your friends have screenshotted your story, you’ll see a small screenshot icon (two arrows crossed with each other) next to their name.

Customizing Who Can View Your Story

Checking who has viewed your story is great if you’re trying to see if your best friend or your crush has checked out your account, but what if you’re trying to block someone from viewing your Story instead? Well, if you’re worried about someone seeing your Story who shouldn’t, you don’t have to keep checking your viewed panel—Snapchat allows you to customize this right from the start.

1. Open up your profile panel
   
   
   
2. Click on the settings menu in this list.
   
   
   
3. Scroll down to the “Privacy Controls” menu, then select “View My Story.”
   
   
   

Here, you’ll find three options to pick from:

1. Everyone: Everyone who follows you can view your Story, even if you don’t follow them back. This is great if you’re trying to become a vlogger or other internet celebrity, but for the most part, we don’t recommend this setting.
   
2. Friends Only: For most people, this is the way to go. Those you’ve accepted on Snapchat can view your Story, but if you haven’t accepted them as a mutual friend, they won’t be able to see your Story at all.
   
3. Custom: If you’re looking to hide your Story from anyone, Custom is the way to go. Not only can you block people from seeing your Story, but you can set up Snapchat so that only a small group of people can see your Stories to begin with. It’s a great way to protect your privacy on the platform.

Of course, these settings apply to every Story you post on Snapchat, so you might want to leave this to Friends Only and instead use our final feature in this guide to hide your Story whenever you feel it necessary.

Creating a Custom Story

As we hinted to above, you can use custom stories 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.

For example, if you’re at someone’s birthday party or graduation party, you can celebrate with everyone there, whether you’ve made connections with the people around you or not. This also allows friends of friends to contribute, so that nearby neighbors aren’t posting random stories unless they know of someone at your event. To start these custom stories:

1. Head to your profile page on Snapchat
   
   
   
2. Scroll down until you see “My Story.” You’ll have the option to create either a private story or shared story.
   
   
   
3. Next, you can decide to set who can add and view the story.
   
   
   
4. Finally, you can rename your custom story to anything you’d like.
   
   
   

The story will appear as a featured story under your own story but above the postings of your friends. To watch your custom story, tap on the menu just as you would with anyone else’s posts.

Frequently Asked Questions

There is a lot to learn about Snapchat notifications. Keep reading for more answers to your questions.

Will Snapchat notify me if someone forwards my Story?

Yes. You will receive a message that tells you who sent your Story shortly after they sent it.

Can I get notifications if someone else posted a Story?

Absolutely! If you go to Snapchat’s Settings, you will see the ‘Notifications’ option. From there, you can turn on the notifications for other friends Stories.

You can even choose whose Stories you want to trigger the notifications. At the bottom of the screen tap ‘Story Notifications.’ Then tap the box to the left of each name you want to notify you. Next, tap ‘Done.’

Wrapping Up

Though you can’t receive notifications for who has or hasn’t viewed your Story, thankfully, you can rely on Snapchat to at least allow you to check your viewed list manually. With custom stories and filters designed to offer privacy and limit people from viewing your Story, Snapchat does allow you to have some knowledge of who’s looking at what, so long as you remember where to look. For more Snapchat guides, stay tuned to TechJunkie, or check out our other Snapchat guides here.