Why is someone showing up in your Snapchat recents when you haven’t spoken with them?

By | September 11, 2024

Snapchat appreciates it when you spend time with it conversing and trading snaps with your pals.

The site gives you Snapscores for sending, receiving, and adding snaps to your tale. It also has streaks to promote regular photo sharing with pals. Aside from these, it has a modest addition that streamlines your snapping experience: the Recents list.

To encourage you to spend more time, it makes it easy to send snaps to your closest Snap friends. So, when you take a picture and want to email it to your pals, the app displays a list of recent friends to pick from.

However, Snapchat features are notoriously unclear, and the Recents list is no exception. The list is designed to show you the people with whom you actively communicate or snap. However, on occasion, it may display you pals with whom you have never communicated.

Why does Snapchat add these friends to your Recent list? Is this due to a glitch? Or are there additional circumstances that cause users to show on this list even if you’ve never communicated with them? Continue reading to find out the answers.

What Does Snapchat’s Recents Mean?


The Snapchat app has two areas where you may view the Recents section. There is just one Recents area on the search screen. This section displays the users you’ve recently searched for.

The other Recents list comes immediately after you take a photo and are going to email it to your pals. To clarify, this is the list we will be discussing in this blog.

Typically, this list includes the names of individuals with whom you frequently exchange snaps and messages, allowing you to effortlessly send the snap to these pals. However, when the list includes pals with whom you rarely or never communicate, the misunderstanding is understandable. Continue reading to find out why those buddies are on Snapchat’s list.

Why is someone showing up in your Snapchat Recents when you haven’t chatted with them?

The Recents list is confusing for one simple reason: people have a misunderstanding of what it means. The moniker “Recents” may lead you to believe it refers to persons you’ve recently snapped or talked with. However, this is only partially accurate.

There are more than just pictures and texts to explain why some pals appear on the Recents list. Someone might be added to the list by some more interactions. Let’s examine their explanations below.

First Reason: You Received a Snap


Not everyone requires a snap message in order to be included to your Recents list. Even if a friend sends you a snap, their name may still appear on the list. Snapchat takes into account all of your interactions, both in and out of the app. Therefore, the friend may show up on the list even if you choose not to respond to the snap they gave you.

NOTE: Even if the buddy removes the photo after sending it, they will still be listed.

Secondly, they texted you.


Receiving a friend’s text can have an identical impact to receiving a snap. Therefore, whether or not you respond to someone who has recently sent you a message, they will show up in your Recents list. Similar to snaps, even if the user deletes the message after sending it, they will still be listed.

Reason 3: You were added back, or the other way around

As previously stated, people are not just added to your Recents list by texts and pictures. Additionally, a user may be on the list just by virtue of your recent friendship with them. Either you added them back or they added you, this might occur.

Stated differently, a person may show up on the Recents list if they or you were recently added back. It makes no difference if any of you have texted or snapped the other person.

Reason 4: Their Reaction to Your Narrative

Another interaction that may have an impact on the Recents list is a story reply. A buddy may show up right away in your Recents list if they respond to your Snapchat story. When you respond to their story, the same thing could occur. A narrative reply might not be the same as the normal text or photo that you share with pals. But Snapchat views it as a relevant component because it’s a means of communication as well.

Reason 5: Snapchat is no longer stable


There are situations in which someone can show up on your Recents lists without meeting any of the four requirements, even with all the explanations we’ve covered thus far. Although this kind of situation is extremely uncommon, it is nevertheless conceivable as flaws may prevent the app from operating properly and cause friends to appear improperly on the list.

Try upgrading the Snapchat app if you believe there is a bug causing this problem. Better still, take it out and put it back in. Most major flaws and issues should be gone after doing one of these procedures.

Is it possible to remove someone from your Snapchat Recents?

You may choose to exclude some friends from your Recents list if you are picky about which friends you want to see thereβ€”for instance, friends you don’t talk to often.

Sadly, unfortunately, you cannot modify the Recents list. It is not possible for you to put or delete persons from the list whenever you choose. The best you can do, even if it’s only a glitch, is attempt some debugging techniques, such upgrading or uninstalling/reinstalling the software.

Nevertheless, unfriending someone is a brute-force method of getting them off the list. The only people on the Recents list are your friends. Therefore, you will also delete someone from the Recents list if you remove them from your Snapchat friend list. But be aware that the friend could show up again.

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