Snapchat is one of the most popular messaging and image sharing apps on the App Store today, thanks to its unique twist: snaps disappear shortly after being seen or read. This focus on keeping photos, videos, and messages temporary and disposable helps keep things quick and casual, rather than requiring you to keep a lengthy, complete archive of a serious conversation. Since its debut in 2011, Snapchat has added a ton of new features, regularly overhauling the app and updating older features to stay relevant. One of the most popular features in Snapchat is the Best Friends list, an algorithm-driven selection of your friends on the app, chosen on the basis of how often you engage with them.
Best Friends rolled out as a feature in 2016, and it’s undergone some changes since then, including changing your friends’ Best Friends data to private. One question many Snapchat users have brought up is what the frequency is for the Best Friends algorithm to update your list. Does a giant mainframe somewhere run a batch job once a day? Or what? In this article, I will explain how often the Best Friends data updates in Snapchat, as well as discussing several other aspects of this feature.
What is the Best Friends Feature?
Your Best Friends in Snapchat are your friends with whom you interact the most. Sending a snap, receiving a snap, or participating in a group chat together all increase your interaction score. Snapchat’s algorithm then puts all your friends in order of their level of interaction with you, and your top contacts are listed on the app as your best friends. If you have relatively few friends on Snapchat, or don’t talk to your friends very often, then you may not have any Best Friends at all, or only have one or two.
At most, eight of your contacts can be listed as your best friends. Snapchat only looks at the last week or so when it calculates your Best Friends list, so you can’t just exchange a thousand messages with someone one day and expect them to stay on your friends list forever. Although they may appear there for a moment, they’ll eventually fall off as your contact with them dwindles to zero.
If you’re looking for your list of Best Friends, you can find it once you’re sending a snap at the very top of your full contacts list. You may also notice that some of your best friends have small emojis next to each name, which indicate a special reward they currently hold. There’s no shortage of emojis you’ll find in this list, and you can even customize them in your settings menu. If you’re looking for some of them, you’ll see emojis like these.
- A yellow heart is for Snapchat Best Friends.
- A red heart is for your BFF, which is a best friend for two weeks.
- Two pink hearts is for two months, where the person becomes your ‘Super BFF’.
- A grin emoji is for someone you share as a best friend with someone else.
- A smirk emoji is for when you’re their best friend but they aren’t yours.
- A smiley is for those second and third Snapchat Best Friends.
- Sunglasses emoji means you share a best friend with someone else.
- The fire emoji is for a Snapchat Best Friend you’re on a Snapstreak with.
These can be edited to appear exactly how you like, with your own custom emojis, just from entering the settings menu and selecting “Manage” under “Additional Options.”
How Often does Snapchat Best Friends Update?
Snapchat hasn’t publicly specified how often the algorithm runs, but the app seems to be updating all the time. A single message can lead to an immediate change in your Best Friends list as a consequence, as can forgetting to send a message to someone within just hours of receiving it. That said, the app also seems to update more frequently after being forced closed on your phone, so don’t be surprised if you miss out on viewing an update after sending a message. Depending on your use history with the app, for those data changes to actually change your Best Friends list results may take some time.
For example, if you have relatively few friends with whom you chat only occasionally, then sending and receiving a few messages with one person could make a major change in that person’s standing on the Best Friends list, which could cause the list to change. On the other hand, if you have hundreds or thousands of friends and send snaps and chats all day, then it will take many messages before there are any big changes in your list.
How Can I See My Best Friend List?
From the Home page, tap on the Friends button (the little chat balloon in the lower left). Then tap the Send To button (the little chat balloon in the upper right). Your Best Friends list will be at the top of your friends list, right above your Recents list. You can also get to the Best Friends list by taking a snap, then tapping the blue arrow at the bottom right of the screen to go to your Friends page, where they will have their own section.
Is It Possible to Arrange My Best Friends List?
Unfortunately, everything in Snapchat’s friends list is designed automatically using an algorithm, so unlike the old MySpace Top Friends list, you can’t control who shows up here. The easiest way to modify and add people to your list is to put in the work to keep sending things to the people you want to connect to. Spamming photos or videos—and getting spammed back in return—is by far the easiest way to get the people you want on your friends list there, even if it won’t necessarily be in a perfect order.
Snapchat’s Best Friends is one of the many neat features of the app that keeps things simple and effective. If you want to know just who you interact with most on Snapchat, now you know how!
