Snapchat update: New version of the app attracts fierce criticism from users

Snapchat: How to use the new, redesigned version of the app

• 1/17 Find your friends

  When you swipe right on the main camera screen, you’ll come to the Friends page. This is where Stories, Snaps, messages and group chats are, but they’re no longer ordered chronologically. Instead, new Snaps and messages, and any new Stories that Snapchat thinks you’ll be interested in, will sit near top of the Friends page. If you’re struggling to find one of your friends, you can type their name into the search bar at the top of the screen. To make different types of content easier to find, Snapchat is adding three tabs to the Friends page – Stories, Groups and All.

• 2/17 Watch Stories

  If one of your friends has posted a Story you haven’t yet watched, you’ll see a circular preview bubble to the left of their name. To watch the Story, tap the bubble. After you watch a friend’s Story, you’ll see a preview of another friend’s Story. You can tap the screen to watch it, swipe to skip it or swipe down to exit. To re-watch a friend’s Story after you’ve already seen it, you need to open their profile by tapping their bitmoji on the Friends page.

• 3/17 Post Stories

  You can post your own Stories by taking a picture or recording a video on the main camera screen, then tapping the arrow in the bottom-right corner and selecting My Story. To check out your Story views and delete Snaps from your Story, you need to visit your Profile page. You can find it by going to the main camera page, hitting the profile picture immediately to the left of the Search bar at the top of the screen, and tapping the My Story panel.

• 4/17 Send Snaps

  To send a Snap, take a picture or record a video on the main camera screen, tap the arrow in the bottom-right corner and choose your friends from the list. The eight people you interact with most on Snapchat sit at the top of the list.

• 5/17 Discover content

  When you swipe left on the main camera screen, you’ll find the Discover page. Here’s where you can access Shows, content from publishers, Stories from people you follow – but aren’t friends with – and Snaps from creators, Snap Map and Our Story. To find something specific in Discover, use the Search bar at the top of the screen. To see less of a certain type of content here, you can tap and hold a tile and hit See Less Like This or Unsubscribe.

• 6/17 Mute friends

  You can mute your friends without them realising, with Do Not Disturb. To enable it, just tap and hold the person or group you want to silence, select Settings from the popup menu and hit Do Not Disturb. You’ll no longer receive notifications from that conversation, but you’ll still be able to access it, check any unread messages and Snaps and send your own too.

• 7/17 Shoot longer Snaps

  You can record up to 60 seconds of Snapchat footage with Multi-Snap (the previous limit was 10 seconds). All you need to do is tap and hold the circular Record button, and keep holding it for up to 60 seconds. Snapchat will split the footage into 10-second segments that you can edit individually, though your recording will play continuously when you send it to your friends or add it to your Story.

• 8/17 Draw with emoji

  You can draw with emoji rather than regular digital brushstrokes by tapping the pen icon after you’ve shot a snap and then hitting the symbol under the colour palette.

• 9/17 Build Geofilters

  You can create your own Geofilters, for occasions like weddings and birthdays, or even for places that are special to you. Go to Settings, hit On-Demand Geofilters and choose when and where you’d like it to appear.

• 10/17 Use multiple filters

  Once you’ve applied a filter to your snap, tap and hold the screen with one finger and swipe with another to layer another filter on top of it.

• 11/17 Save data

  You can reduce the amount of data Snapchat munches through by enabling Travel Mode. Find it by going to Settings and tapping Manage Preferences.

• 12/17 Understand emoji

  From here, you can also learn what those emoji that appear alongside your friends’ names mean. You can change the ones you don’t like by tapping them.

• 13/17 Understand message types

  It’s also useful to understand what Snapchat’s different-coloured arrows and squares mean, so you’ll no longer be unsure whether you can open a certain message in public or not.

• 14/17 Collect trophies

  You can find out how many Snapchat trophies you’ve earned by going to your Profile page and tapping the Trophies button. You can unlock more by trying out new things with the app.

• 15/17 Access Snap Map

  You can access the controversial Snap Map, which shows you where in the world your friends are, by pinching the main camera screen. You can also hide yourself from fellow Snapchat users by tapping the Settings icon and enabling Ghost Mode.

• 16/17 Discover new music

  You can Shazam a song within Snapchat by tapping and holding the camera screen. Once it identifies it, you can share the song with your friends.

• 17/17 Get new features early

  You can get access to new and experimental features before regular Snapchat users by joining the Snapchat beta. In the Settings menu, tap Join Snapchat Beta.