The Quick Guide to Snapchat Emoji Meanings

Snapchat users who send and receive multiple snaps with friends will notice little emoji icons that appear next to their friends' names in the chat tab. This article explains Snapchat emojis and what they mean. Information in this article applies to the Snapchat app for iOS and Android.

What Are Snapchat Emojis?

The Snapchat app tracks your messaging habits with your friends and assigns Friend emojis to represent the current status of your level of interaction with other users. As you continue to send and receive messages, the emojis will change over time.

Likewise, if you stop messaging someone for a while, the emoji may disappear completely. Your Friend emojis are not public; they are only visible to you. Emojis will look different depending on which platform you're using (iOS or Android).

Snapchat Friend Emoji Meanings

Meanings differ depending on friend status, interactions, and the length of time you've been friends with someone. Snapchat continually adds and removes friend emoji; the list below includes both past and present Snapchat emojis.

Yellow Heart (Besties) 💛

You're both best friends. You send the most snaps to this friend, and they send the most snaps to you.

Red Heart (BFF) ❤️

A yellow heart becomes a red heart when you remain each other's BFF for a period of two weeks.

Two Pink Hearts (Super BFF) 💕

If you see the two pink hearts beside a friend's username, it means that this friend has been your number one best friend on Snapchat, or your "Super BFF," for two months in a row. It also means that you have been that friend's number one best friend out of all of their friends for two months as well.

Grimacing Face 😬

A smiley bearing his teeth as if grimacing beside a friend's name means that your number one best friend is their number one best friend as well. In other words, you share a best friend.

Smirking Face 😏

When you see an emoji with a smirk on its face beside a friend's name, it means that you're that friend's best friend, but they're not your best friend (you have a different best friend).

Smiling Face 😊

An emoji with smiling eyes and rosy cheeks beside a friend's name means that they're one of your best friends, but not your number one.

Sunglasses Face 😎

If you see a sunglasses-wearing smiley face beside a username, it means that one of your best friends is one of their best friends too.

Sparkles ✨

If you're snapping with multiple friends as a group, you'll see the sparkle emoji appear, which can help you identify all the friends you're including in group chats.

Baby 👶

A baby emoji appears immediately after you add someone as a friend on Snapchat.

Fire 🔥

If you're super active on Snapchat, you may see a fiery flame emoji appear beside someone's name, meaning that you're on a "snapstreak." You've been snapping back and forth with them a lot over the past several days, and the longer you stick with it, the higher the snapstreak number you'll see beside the Fire emoji.

Hourglass ⌛

If you see an hourglass that's almost out of time, it means that your snapstreak is going to end soon. Start snapping now to save it and keep it going.

100💯

You'll see 100 next to Fire emoji when you snap back and forth for 100 days in a row.

Birthday Cake 🎂

When you see a cake beside a friend's name, it means that today is their birthday. Send them a snap to wish them a happy birthday.

Gold Star 🌟

Another user has replayed this friend's snaps in the past 24 hours.

Astrological Signs

If a person has added their birthday to Snapchat, the emoji for their astrological sign will appear on their profile:

• ♒: Aquarius
• ♓: Pisces
• ♈: Aries
• ♉️: Taurus
• ♊: Gemini
• ♋: Cancer
• ♌: Leo
• ♍: Virgo
• ♎: Libra
• ♏: Scorpio
• ♐: Saggitarius
• ♑: Capricorn
  

Other Emojis You Might See That Aren't Generated by Snapchat

Snapchat automatically adds the above emojis to people's profiles and avatars, but you may run into some other ones in usernames and elsewhere that the platform doesn't make. Here are some of them:

• Purple Heart 💜: Snapchat used to put these on people's profiles during their birthday months. Along with general feelings of affection, fans of the Korean boy band BTS also use the purple heart to show their appreciation.
• Green Heart 💚: Just like with the purple heart, you can use the green heart to spot K-pop fans. This one represents NCT.
• Brown Heart 🤎: The brown heart gained popularity among supporters of the Black Lives Matter movement. It reflects pride, solidarity, and joy.
• Star Eye 🤩: People may use the smiley emoji with stars for eyes when they spot a celebrity or other person they admire. They can also use it to describe admiration or being impressed.
• Upside-Down Smiley 🙃: The inverted smiley face can mean a few things, including embarassment, irony, or that you're joking.
• Wrapped Gift 🎁: The wrapped present emoji doesn't have any special meaning on Snapchat other than what it represents. People typically use it around special occasions like birthdays, holidays, and anniversaries.

How to Customize Friend Emojis

You can actually change the emojis for all the interactions listed above so that you see the exact emojis you want to see next to your friends' names. For example, if you want your number one best friend for two months to be the poop emoji instead of the two pink hearts:

1. Launch Snapchat and tap your Profile icon at the top of the app.

2. Tap the gear in the top-right of your profile to access your settings.

3. For the iOS version, tap Manage under Additional Services.

   On the Android version of Snapchat, tap Customize Emojis under Features, and then skip to step 5.

4. Tap Friend Emojis to see a list of all the emojis with their corresponding meanings.

5. Tap Super BFF.

6. Tap the poop emoji. Any time you have a Super BFF, the pile of poo emoji will now appear next to that friend's name in the chat tab

Snapchat's Shift From Best Friends to Friend Emojis

Older versions of Snapchat included the best friends feature, which listed 3-7 of the friends you snapped with the most at the top of your friend list. In fact, you could tap on anyone's username to reveal who their best friends were. Due to privacy concerns from Snapchat users, the best friends feature was taken away in January of 2015 during an update.