What does the gray box on Snapchat mean?

What does the gray box on Snapchat mean?

Snapchat is one of the most popular and important social networks today. Especially popular with younger, more tech-friendly audiences, Snapchat relies on sending temporary photos and videos to your friends, or posting twenty-four-hour-long stories for selected friends to see. Of course, despite its success, Snapchat has a reputation for being difficult to use, with weird UI decisions and other decisions that can make it hard to understand what you're doing on a specific page.

Apart from all the symbols, it can be difficult for new users to understand if someone has added them on Snapchat, read their messages, etc. Once you better understand what each of these symbols means, Snapchat messages and friendships become a lot less elusive. .

One of the questions we see coming up most frequently from Snapchat users comes down to the seen icons the app uses on the main chat page. While we're all used to red, purple, and blue squares, grays are a bit more confusing. Let's discuss what the gray box on Snapchat means and more questions you might have about the popular photo-sharing app.

What is the gray box on Snapchat?

The gray box on snapchat symbol usually appears when you have never shot with another person. Essentially, it's an indicator that there's not a lot of communication going on between you and someone else on Snapchat.

It can indicate that a user has blocked you or has not accepted your friend request. If a gray box appears after you've captured a contact, it probably means they're no longer accepting communications from you.

Like the gray arrow, which indicates that the recipient does not accept private messages from you, the gray color means a lot that there is an action pending.

As you can see from this screenshot, there are various icons that exist between contacts within Snapchat's messaging feature. Those gray boxes are people who were added but never broken, while the others mean there has been some form of conversation within Snapchat at some point.

If you're worried that someone has blocked you on Snapchat, there are other ways to be sure. The gray box symbol can vary in meaning, so it's best to be safe before jumping to conclusions.

What about the other symbols?

  • An empty red box means your Snap without audio was sent to the recipient and has been viewed.
  • An empty purple box means your Audio Snap was sent to the recipient and has been viewed.
  • An empty blue box means that your chat has been viewed.
  • A filled red box means you have an unopened Snap with no audio.
  • A filled purple box means you have an unopened Snap with audio.
  • A filled blue box means you have an unopened chat.

There are other icons that are used to indicate a different chat state or Snap view.

  • A red circle with an arrow means your Snap has been replayed without audio.
  • A purple circle with an arrow means your Snap has been replayed with audio.
  • A strange red arrow with three lines means that someone took a screenshot of your Snap without audio.
  • A purple arrow of the same design means that someone took a screenshot of your Snap with audio.
  • A blue arrow means someone has taken a screenshot of your chat.

What are the arrows on Snapchat?

So now you know that the checkboxes are chat and Snap status indicators. What about the arrows you often see around the app?

  • The solid red arrow just means you sent a Snap with no audio.
  • The solid purple arrow means you sent a Snap with audio.
  • The filled blue arrow means you are sending a chat.
  • The filled-in gray arrow means that the person you're sending a friend request to hasn't accepted it yet.
  • The hollow red arrow means your Snap has been opened without audio.
  • The hollow purple arrow means your Snap with audio has been opened.
  • The hollow blue arrow means that your chat has been opened.

Again, there are plenty of icons to get familiar with, but the system is so simple that it won't take long to remember them all. If you start by remembering that red icons mean Snaps without audio, purple means Snaps with audio, and blue is for chats, you can build from there. It's a simple system, so you'll get the hang of it quickly.

In case you have found a mistake in the text, please send a message to the author by selecting the mistake and pressing Ctrl-Enter.
Comments (0)

    No comments yet

You must be logged in to comment.

Sign In / Sign Up