Snapchat loves it when you spend time on it chatting and exchanging snaps with your friends.
The platform rewards you with Snapscores for sending, receiving, and adding snaps to your story. It also offers streaks to encourage daily snapping with friends. But besides these, it also offers a subtle feature that simplifies your snapping experience: the Recents list.
To encourage you to spend more time, it makes it easier for you to send snaps to your closest Snap buddies. So, when you capture a snap and try to send it to your friends, the app shows you a list of recent friends to choose from.
However, Snapchat features are known for their confusing nature, and the Recents list is no exception. The list is supposed to show you friends you actively chat or snap with. Yet, once in a while, it may even show you friends you haven’t ever spoken to.
Why does Snapchat put these friends on your Recent list? Is this because of a glitch? Or are there other conditions that make users appear on this list even if you have never spoken to them? Read on to get the answers.
What do Recents on Snapchat Mean?
There are two places within the Snapchat app where you can see the Recents section. There is one Recents section that appears on the search screen. This section shows the users you have recently searched for.
The other Recents list appears right after you take a snap and are about to send it to your friends. To be clear, this is the list we are going to discuss in this blog.
Usually, this list contains the names of friends with whom you most often exchange snaps and texts, so you can easily send the snap to these friends. However, when the list starts showing friends you seldom talk with or have never talked with, the resulting confusion is only natural. Jump to the next section to know why Snapchat includes those friends on the list.
Why is someone showing up in your Snapchat Recents when you haven’t spoken to them?
The confusion surrounding the Recents list is because of a simple reason—a misconception of its meaning. The name “Recents” may make you think it has something to do with people you have recently snapped or chatted with. However, this is only partially true.
The reasons for the appearance of certain friends on the Recents list are not limited to snaps and texts. Some other interactions may also bring someone to the list. Let’s look at these reasons below.
Reason 1: They Sent You a Snap
You don’t always need to send someone a snap to add them to your Recents list. A friend can appear on the list even if they send you a snap. Snapchat considers any incoming or outgoing interaction between you two. So, even if you don’t reply to the snap they sent you, the friend can appear on the list because they sent you a snap.
NOTE: The friend will remain on the list even if they delete the snap after sending.
Reason 2: They Texted You
Getting texts from a friend can have the same effect as getting snaps. So, if a person has recently sent you a message, they will appear on your Recents list regardless of whether you reply. As in the case of snaps, the user will remain on the list even if they delete the message after sending it.
Reason 3: They Added You Back (or vice versa)
As mentioned earlier, texts and snaps are not solely responsible for bringing users to your Recents list. A user can also show up on the list simply because you recently became friends with them. This can happen either way—whether you added them back or they added you.
In other words, a user can appear on the Recents list if you recently added them back or if they recently added you back. It doesn’t matter if any of you have sent any snap or text to the other person.
Reason 4: They Replied to Your Story
A story reply is another interaction that can affect the Recents list. If a friend replies to your Snapchat story, they may immediately appear on your Recents list. The same can happen when you reply to their story. A story reply may not be the typical text or snap you exchange with friends. But since it is also a form of communication, Snapchat considers it an apt factor.
Reason 5: Snapchat has Gone Buggy
Despite all the reasons we have discussed so far, there do exist instances when someone may appear on your Recents lists without satisfying any of the four reasons. While such an instance is very rare, it is quite possible because bugs can interfere with the proper functioning of the app, making it show friends incorrectly on the list.
If you think a bug is causing this issue, try updating the Snapchat app. Or better yet, uninstall and reinstall it. One of these steps will likely remove most major glitches and bugs.
Can you Get Someone out of your Recents on Snapchat?
If you are very particular about the friends you wish to see on your Recents list, you might want to remove some specific people from this list—for example, certain friends you don’t regularly interact with.
Unfortunately, though, the Recents list is not editable. You cannot add or remove people to or from the list at your convenience. Even if it’s a glitch, the most you can do is try some debugging steps like updating or uninstalling/reinstalling the app.
That said, there is one brute-force way of removing someone from the list—unfriending them. The Recents list only contains your friends. So, if you remove someone from your Snapchat friend list, you will also remove them from the Recents list. However, note that the friend may reappear on the list when you become friends with them again.
Conclusion
Snapchat may suggest people on your Recents list even if you have never talked with them before. However, the appearance of these users is not without meaning.
If a friend appears under the Recents heading while sharing a snap, it can mean they have sent you a snap, text, or story reply. But it can also mean that you have recently become friends with them. In some rare cases, though, a bug can also cause users to wrongly appear on the list.
If your Recents list contains someone you don’t want on the list, would you prefer removing them as a friend? Or will you prefer chatting with other friends to push the unwanted user down the list? Tell us in the comments!
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