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Snapchat’s entire business model is based on the idea that you can send photos to your friends that will disappear in seconds. Unless said friend takes it upon themselves to take a screenshot and save the screenshot image, that snapshot will be lost to the ether, gone forever, kaput. The principle is intended to inspire fantasy, silliness, and a certain recklessness on the part of Snapchat users. It’s also the only thing that makes Snapchat different than, say, taking a photo and texting it to your friends. So it’s no surprise that Snapchat has had no comment on recent claims that its snaps aren’t as fleeting as advertised.
How does Snapchat delete snaps?
First of all, to understand how these snaps can be recovered, you first need to know what actually happens when Snapchat “deletes” them. Each snapshot is given a file extension called .NOMEDIA, which prevents the snapshot from being saved to the user’s phone. However, it doesn’t take into account a little thing called metadata.
Metadata is basically data about data. In other words, if the actual image is the data, the metadata includes information about that image, such as when it was sent, who it was sent to, and the file name. By accessing this metadata, you may be able to recreate images that were supposed to be gone forever.
Enter Decipher Forensics
Decipher Forensics, a research center based in Utah, conducted a study using AccessData software to try to see if they could recover snapshots. Spoiler alert: they could. The software allowed them to access metadata about the snapshots. They then changed the names of the files accessed this way by removing the .NOMEDIA extension. By doing so, they were able to access the original image.
“That file extension can be removed as easily as renaming the file in Windows,” says researcher Richard Hickman. However, knowing how to find the metadata can be a bit complicated.
Recover Snapchats and Snapchat data from iPhone
Currently, there are a number of software, both free (such as UltData) and paid, that allow you to recover recently deleted data from your iPhone. The steps to recover data and, by extension, lost media from Snapchat, are as follows:
Connect your iPhone to the application that is used to recover the data. This can be done physically by connecting your iPhone to your laptop or desktop computer via its USB cable. It can also be achieved by accessing your iCloud backup in data recovery software (CAUTION: Avoid phishing scams by making sure you are using legitimate data recovery software).
Once your device is connected to the software, you can recover your lost media. If data is displayed, but no images or videos are displayed, it is likely that the media is still saved in the .NOMEDIA file type. To fix this problem, simply rename the file and change the file type, as mentioned above.
Recover Snapchats and Snapchat Data from Android
Accessing deleted Snapchats on an Android device is a little different than on an iPhone; Android users have a slight advantage in accessing the data left after sending and deleting a Snapchat. It’s as simple as navigating to your phone’s cache folder and finding the Snapchat-specific folder inside.
You can do this by running various apps (like Dumpster, which is a free data recovery app on Google Play Store) on your Android device. Dumpster is very easy to use; After installation, simply update and allow it to scan your phone to recover lost or “deleted” data. You may need to export the data and change the file type from .NOMEDIA to a readable file.
