How to Use Snapchat Maps

You can share your location with your friends on Snapchat by applying location filters to your snaps, but that's not all you can do. Snapchat's Snap Map offers a whole new way to share your location.

Snapchat's Snap Map is an interactive map you can use to share your location with friends. You can also see friends when they share their location with you. If your friends have integrated their Bitmoji account with Snapchat, their Bitmoji characters will appear on the map at their location.

The Snap Map also has a community-based "Our Story" feature, which allows you to add your own snaps from a location to a story collection for that specific location. So when anyone goes to view that story collection from the Snap Map, they'll see all the snaps from every user who contributed to Our Story for that location.

There are three ways to get the Snap Map on the Snapchat app for iOS and Android.

• Tap a friend's picture on the Friends tab. If they're sharing their location, you'll see a preview image below their name on their profile. Tap it to open the Snap Map.

• Pull down on the Camera screen.

Now that you know how to access the Snap Map, you can start using it. Here are all the different ways you can take advantage of it.

• See your friends' locations: Friends who've chosen to share their location with you will appear on the Snap Map. Tap on a friend to instantly start a chat with them, or tap and hold to go to their profile.
• Search for a friend's location: Wondering where in the world a friend might be? Tap Search at the top of the screen to look for a specific friend on the map.
• Use the heat map to see snaps other people have shared: Use your finger to drag the map around and look for the splashes of color on the map, which shows where people are snapping from. Blue means there are just a few snaps, while red means a lot of activity is happening there. Tap a colored area to view the snaps shared from there.
• View Stories for hot spots: Scouting out the colored portions of the map will reveal story collections for popular locations and events. Tap a popular part of the map first to reveal the circular story collection, and then tap the story collection to view the stories added to it.
• Add your snaps to Our Story: If you're snapping from a location with its own story collection, you can select Our Story from the Send To tab after taking a snap. You can also tap +Custom at the top of the Send To tab to create your own Geo Story, which allows you to share it with people nearby.

You can access the Snap Map from Snapchat's website. Similar to how you'd use your finger to drag the map around on the mobile app, you can use your cursor to select and drag the map around to other locations. You can also use your mouse or trackpad to zoom in and out.

Select a colored portion or any circular story collection that appears to view snaps. A window will pop up over the map and will automatically play all the snaps shared by people in that specific location.

If you ever want to change your location settings at a later time: