Snapchat Snaps don't always disappear: Here's the tool to prove it

If you're using Snapchat with a person who uses an Android device to see your snaps, your Snaps might still be hidden. We're talking un-deleted, not disappeared, not gone forever. Unless that person regularly logs out of their Snapchat account (logs out, not just closes their app), those Snaps (photos, videos) are quite likely still sitting around, hidden in a folder called "chat_snap". Per the creators of a tool called "SnapRecovery", "deleted Snaps can be recovered using the right forensics tools", too.

Before we get too far, note that the creators of the tool SnapRecovery last tested with Snapchat v11.9.0.48 Beta. They used LineageOS (modded Android 10) on a rooted Android device. It should be made clear, here, that the pathway to recovering viewed/deleted Snaps isn't especially easy. If a person reading this has never rooted an Android device before, there's a pretty good chance they'll have a difficult time getting from point A, reading this, to point B, preparing their Android device, rooting, running the SnapRecovery tool, to point C, recovering Snaps with said tool.

The creators of this tool are listed on the GitHub site as Kian Kasad, Siddharth Dushantha, and mirsella. These creators and investigators have discovered that the Android version of Snapchat does not delete Snap files until the user logs out of their account in the app.

Per the Snap "Snaps Stored" page last updated May 9, 2013, "after a Snap has been opened, the temporary copy of it is deleted from the device's storage." As is generally the case with all "deleted" files on any device, said files aren't really "deleted" entirely after the first time the user commands that they be deleted. With the right set of tools, like the SnapRecovery tool on GitHub, your everyday average user can recover Snaps after they've been viewed.

SEE TOO: Snapchat is not private, nor is it safe

To avoid Snaps from being seen after they've been viewed once, or even deleted, start by logging out of Snapchat. You might want to make a habit of doing this every once in a while so you can at least start moving Snaps from the Android folder "Chat_Snap" to a slightly more secure deleted state.

After that, it really depends on how important it is that your previously-viewed or deleted Snaps remain unseen forever after that. If you have a device that's opened a Snap that you absolutely, positively CANNOT have anyone see ever again, the best way to make this happen is to destroy the phone.

There's still a chance that the media in the Snap still exists somewhere on the internet, and likely on the device where it was first captured. But we know the risks of capturing media we don't want shared, right?