Alright so this morning I was scrolling through my Snapchat chats like usual, you know, checking snaps from friends, sending some silly pics back. Then I noticed this one friend’s name had this little hourglass emoji ⌛️ right beside it. Totally threw me off! Like, “what does that even mean?” I thought maybe it was some countdown or something, like they were leaving Snapchat? Felt kinda panicky honestly.
First thing I did was tap their name super quick. Expected some fancy explanation to pop up—but nope! Just the usual profile stuff. Weird, right? So I figured, “fine, Google to the rescue!” Typed in “hourglass emoji Snapchat” and guess what? Tons of other confused folks asking the same thing. Felt a bit better knowing I wasn’t alone.
Turns out that hourglass has NOTHING to do with time limits or countdowns. Big surprise! Nope, it’s actually Snapchat’s sneaky way of waving a big red flag at you about your Snapstreak! Who knew? I sure didn’t.
So I tested it out. My sister and I had a solid 10-day streak going—nothing crazy. Sent her a snap, went back to my chats… still no hourglass. Then I remembered – Snapchat says streaks need snaps FROM BOTH PEOPLE! So I waited… and waited… Hours passed and her snap back? Totally MIA. Boom! Refresh the app one more time, and there it was—that dang hourglass ⌛️ shining bright next to her name. Felt kinda dumb for stressing earlier! Guess the app was basically screaming “HEY DUMMY, SEND A SNAP BACK OR YOU LOSE IT!”
Finally totally gets it now. Here’s the lowdown:
- The hourglass emoji ONLY shows up for Snapstreaks.
- It pops up when a streak is literally hours away from dying. Like, down to the wire!
- It appears only if both people haven’t snapped each other back within that 24-hour window.
- It’s like Snapchat’s last-ditch panic alert: “SEND A SNAP NOW OR FOREVER HOLD YOUR PEACE (and lose the streak)!”
Totally obvious now, but honestly felt like cracking some secret code this morning. Hope this saves someone else from sweating it out like I did!
