What Is A Snapcode?

If you use Snapchat you’ve probably seen a snapcode whether you knew it or not. Your Snapchat icon with the ghost in the middle showed up one day with a bunch of seemingly random black dots in it. This is your snapcode. If you are familiar with QR Codes which failed miserably a while back, that is essentially what this is. The weird thing about it though, is Snapchat found a way to make QR Codes cool again.

What Is The Purpose?

A snapcode works as Snapchat’s follow button. Up until these were rolled out, if you wanted to add anyone to Snapchat you would have to get their username and type it into the Add Friends search box. If you mistyped anything… that’s a paddlin’. Sorry, watching too many old Simpson’s episodes lately. If you mistyped it, you wouldn’t be able to find your new friend. Now, you can simply use the app, scan their code and voila! They automatically get added to your friends list. If you were with the person you want to friend, they could open up their code in their app, and you could just point your Snapchat camera at it. If you were somewhere else, they could screenshot their code, send it to you, and scan the code via a photo. Either way, so much easier than typing a username. Especially if the username was 1_4m_s0_cool148732.

Where Do I Find My Snapcode?

Within The App

1. Open Snapchat
2. Select the ghost icon in the top middle of the screen
3. You should see your snapcode

The above snapcode is mine, feel free to follow me if you like. Not a whole lot happening on there most of the time. On occasion there are photos of my dog, some friends, concerts, me getting tattooed, travelling, touring with Reignwolf, etc.

Download The Snapcode Image

1. Open a browser on your computer
2. Go to this link: Snapchat Login
3. Log in to your account
4. Click on Download My Snapcode

How Do I Scan Someone’s Snapcode?

Using The Camera

1. Open up Snapchat
2. Make sure you’re on the camera as if you were about to Snapchat a photo
3. Point the camera at the snapcode
4. Press and hold the screen over the snapcode
5. It should notify you that it added a friend

Using A Photo Of A Snapcode

1. Open up Snapchat
2. Select the ghost icon in the top middle of the screen
3. Select Add Friends
4. Select Add by Snapcode
5. Select the photo of the snapcode from your albums

If is recognizes the snapcode, it will notify you that it added a friend. If it doesn’t, it will show up with a X icon.

Snapcode Usage Guidelines

Snapchat has some guidelines that you will have to follow when using these snapcodes. You can read all about that here: Snapcode Usage Guidelines.

Creating Your Own Snapcode Image For Distribution

If you want to create your own snapcode image that you can share with people there are a few things that you will need to know.

Easiest way to start is to download the snapcode image from Snapchat’s website using the link I provided above. Once you have this image downloaded, you can edit the inside of the ghost any way you like. Add sunglasses on it, put your photo inside, change it’s color, etc. DO NOT manipulate any of the yellow area where the dots are located. This is the portion that it scans and if it is messed with there is a chance the code won’t scan.

Examples

We recently created some simple images for Reignwolf to distribute on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. You can take a look at the do’s and don’ts.

These Should Scan Fine

This One Has Worked If The Image Is Large Enough

This One Shouldn’t Scan

This one shouldn’t scan since the wolf head is interfering with some of the black dots that make up the scancode. It may still work on occasion, but may not want to distribute it just in case.

Hope this helps!