Why Aren't Snaps Sending? Users Want to Know What's Wrong With the App

It’s always a pain when a Snapchat won’t send, especially when you’re mid-conversation with your crush. Snapchat is used as a secret way to send pics, naughty or otherwise, and communicate with few repercussions. This makes it all the worse when a Snap won’t send for whatever reason.

It gets stuck in limbo, or worse, it just never gets saved, and it could’ve been an all-time great photo angle. So people are naturally upset when a Snap doesn’t send. Is there a Snapchat outage or is it an individual issue? We’ve figured out the most likely reason why your Snaps aren’t sending.

Between the hours of 6 p.m. EST and 9 p.m. EST on Jan. 9, 2024, users reported outages in their Snapchat app. The Sun reported that people throughout the United States and the United Kingdom reported issues. While the app was working for some people, others couldn’t get through to their friends and lovers.

At least 8,000 people reported issues on Downdetector, which means there are likely many more who were affected by the outage. People seemed to have problems mainly with the app, although the server connection comes in a close second, and 9 percent of users reported problems with sharing in the app if they could get that far. It’s never fun when your favorite app is down, but sometimes, that’s not the reason for an unsent Snap.

Thanks to some troubleshooting tactics, one can often figure out what’s wrong with Snapchat on their phone. The most likely issue tends to be with internet connection. If you’re at home, you could get closer to the router to see if that helps. If you’re on a public network, you may need to sign in through the Wi-Fi before being able to use the internet. But if all other internet-based apps are working, then it’s time to try something else.

If you force close Snapchat and reopen it, sometimes that can very easily fix the problem. If that doesn’t help, restarting your phone might be the magic ingredient. Of course, every so often there could be a bug that requires you to sign out and sign back into Snapchat.

If signing out and back in doesn't work, there's a last resort if your Snapchat won’t send. You can clear the cache on your Snapchat by going to the Settings icon on your Snapchat profile page. In “Account Actions,” you have the option to “Clear Cache,” and you should then go all the way and just “Clear All.” And don’t worry — this won’t delete your data!

But the worst-case scenario is to delete and re-install Snapchat. And we don’t just mean deleting it from the home screen. We mean deleting it entirely. Then you can re-install it, log back in, and hopefully, your Snaps will send and you can get back to your clandestine conversations.