How to Delete an Unopened Snapchat Picture

How to delete or unsend a snapchat, that you may have sent to someone that you really didn’t mean to do so or that you instantly regret? Well, there are 3 (three) ways to do so depending on the situation, which we’ll be discussing in great length in this post.

First off, if you already didn’t know this, Snapchat has given users the option to delete text messages no matter whether the person on the other end has seen it or not. This feature however is limited to chat conversations. Update: Snapchat now allows you to delete all kinds of snaps so long as they haven’t been opened.

What happens when you accidentally send an embarrassing picture or video of yourself to someone? Can you delete it before he/she opens it?

Pictures and videos are a little different from text messages, and while Snapchat does not give you any option to delete a snap once you have sent it, there are a couple of ways (work-arounds) that have worked for us in the past.

Here are 3 ways to delete an unopened Snapchat:

Table of Contents

Delete an unopened chat message
Block your friend’s account
Deactivate your account

1. Delete an Unopened Chat in Snapchat

So let’s start things off with the easiest method, which is to simply unsend a snapchat message that you may have sent to someone else on your snapchat account.

Snapchat actually implemented a feature directly within the conversations tab itself that’ll actually allow you to delete a sent message, if you want to do so.

So pretty much if you go ahead and send someone a text message that you don’t want them to see, all you have to do is simply hold on to that message and an option directly from Snapchat will pop up asking you whether or not you want to delete that sent message.

Now obviously if you want to go ahead and delete it. You would then go ahead and click on the Delete option.

This will delete the chat message from your end and your friend’s end. However he/she will be able to see that the chat message has been deleted by you, without of course actually seeing the message.

Updated News: You can now delete snaps (pictures and videos) simply by holding on to the snap and tapping on Delete, just like you’d do for text messages. However, this is only possible if the person you have sent the snap has not opened the snap, that is, it only works for unopened snaps.

2. Delete Unopened Snacphat Picture or Video by Blocking Them

As far as an actual picture or video goes, when you go ahead and send someone a picture or a video on Snapchat, it’s a lot difficult to actually get it unsent because it goes through multiple weird channels of Snapchat servers, and the only working method we’ve found is by either blocking that person or deactivating your Snapchat account.

To delete a Snapchat picture or video before the recipient opens it, just block that person before he/she sees that picture. After blocking them for a short while, say 5 minutes, you can simply unblock them again.

To block someone, go to your contacts list, hold on their name, a pop-up will appear that will give you an option to Block them.

When you’re added back, those pictures would be shown as “opened” while in reality he/she would not have viewed the pictures or videos.

And yes, even if you’re having streaks, your streaks will not be broken if you add them back within 24 hours (this has been tried and tested).

However, if they are on your best friends list, they will have been removed from the list once you blocked them. Unblocking and re-adding them will not bring them back to the best friends list unfortunately.

3. Deactivate/Delete your Snapchat account

If you’re not comfortable with blocking them, the only option is to simply delete your snapchat account, depending on how risky of a snapchat you may have sent.

I mean if it’s a ‘desperate times desperate measures’ kind of situation, maybe deleting your snapchat might be the only option just so the other person doesn’t get to see the Snapchat that you sent them.

To delete/deactivate your Snapchat account, go to Snapchat’s website > Accounts Portal.

You can reactivate your Snapchat account within 30 days of deactivating it if you want to get back on Snapchat.

To summarize, here are the 3 ways to delete an unopened Snapchat: