13 Snapchat tips and tricks to turn you into a messaging master, from filters to friend finding

Snapchat is now well beyond its original 14-year-old audience of early adopters. It's fun, and way more spicy than a plain old Facebook update or WhatsApp message. It's the new social giant in town… and it's bloody confusing.

If you want to get up to speed in the next 3 minutes and 15 seconds, soak up our 13 top Snapchat tips and tricks. And maybe even a few of you who have been using Snapchat for a year may still learn something new.

1. How to make a video your friends can see more than once

The whole point of Snapchat is that it lets you send videos that can only be seen once, right? Well, not quite. If you're a bit too proud of your latest creation, there's another option. You can turn it into a Story, which can be seen as many times as you like for 24 hours.

hese stories are like little strings of Snapchat bits, not unlike a sort of holiday photo album. They can be pictures or video clips (to take video you simply hold down on the shutter button rather than tapping, by the way), and you add one to a Story by pressing the little icon at the bottom of the screen that looks like a box with a 'plus' icons in the top-right corner. In the View My Story part of Settings you can also customise who gets to see these Story posts.

2. Using those amazing face-changing filters

The best part of Snapchat has to be the face-fiddling filters that make you vomit rainbows and mutate your face into something a hall of mirrors can't touch. Yep, we're 9 years old, deal with it.

It's not immediately obvious how to actually use these "Lenses", since Snapchat is apparently too cool for things like traditional menus. To open up the Lenses toy box, just hold a finger down on a face in the scene, most likely when using the selfie camera. You'll see the available effects appear down at the bottom. Now start the rainbow-vomiting.

3. How to check out last-gen lenses

Snapchat overhauled its Lenses animations in late 2015. But you can still check out old classics like the one that puts a lobster on your head, if you like.

We get the feeling this is a deliberate Easter Egg, because all you have to do is to change the date on your phone, like the cheat on some video game from the '90s. Some time in mid-2015 will get you the last lot. Of course, given apps like WhatsApp won't actually work if you use the wrong date, this one is purely for the brief LOLs.

4. Unlock your colourful side

Once you've shot your image or video, there are a few different ways you can customise the thing. You can add emojis, add text or scribble over the image. You do this using the three icons that'll pop up in the top-right of the screen.

It's the scribbling one that's tip-worthy. Tap the pen icon and it looks like you only have pretty primary shades to work with in a little palette that pops up. However, hold a finger down on this for a second and it'll expand to display a whole load more to work with.

5. Take a screenshot to capture the moment

Snapchats disappear like dust in the wind (outside of Snapchat servers at least). But you can always save a brief snapette of a moment by taking a screenshot on your phone. With an iPhone that means pressing the Home button and power button at the same time. On Android, you just press volume down and the power button together.

The sender will get a notification when you do this, but you can apparently side-step this effect by switching to quickly turn Airplane mode on - sneaky. However, we do wonder what you're doing if you're so desperate not to have a Snapchatter know you're papping them. They sent you the bloody thing after all.

6. You can add two filters at once

Another example of Snapchat having weird little hidden interface goodies is that you can apply two filters at once, but that's not initially clear. These are the near-Instagram-like overlays you can apply post-shoot by flicking left-right on the screen.

Do that, then keep your finger rooted on the display and flick with another finger and the first filter stays, overlaid by another one. This is particularly useful if you want to add a colour filter as well as one of the time stamp or geo-filters.

7. You can add friends by location

There's a good chance the people you want to add on Snapchat are already in your Contacts list. Like online gaming or long car journeys with broken radios, it works best with friends. You can also add people by location, though. This one's good for parties, although post-party Snapchatting has late-night drunken regret written all over it.

Re-warned? Just flick down from the main screen to bring up the profile display, then press Add Friends, then Add Nearby. This will let you hook up with anyone nearby who does the same. It's a good way to get around the fact that you've probably already forgotten their name.

8. Adding, resizing and angling emojis

You may know you can add emojis to your Snapchats already, but the real fun of the thing is messing with them to turn the ordinary emoji into something that looks odd. Subvert the smiley, in other words.

By using familiar two-finger pinch and twist gestures you can turn and enlarge all emojis, so they fill the screen if you like. They're all drawn as vectors so don't suddenly look blocky when you make them huge. In case you're not already an emoji master, to add one you just take your Snapchat then tap the third icon from the right at the top of the screen, the one that looks like a part-folded piece of paper.

9. Join Snapchat Beta to get sneaky peeks

Want to be on the Snapchat cutting edge? It may also involve wading through bugs at times, but you should consider signing up for Snapchat Beta. This volunteers you into the guinea pig scheme: we're telling it like it is. You'll get hold of early versions of the Snapchat app, but the idea is that as well as getting to try out new stuff first, you'll also have to put up with an app that doesn't actually work properly yet.

That's the idea. When you start complaining, Snapchat knows it needs to fix something. So, yeah, you're working for free to an extent, but then you might get to try out a Lens that turns you into a crocodile a week before Greg so… thumbs-up. You can sign up to Snapchat Beta from the Settings menu.

10. Double-secure your Snapchat account

The idea of someone hijacking your Snapchat is about as terrifying as someone nicking your Facebook account. Maybe even worse given those ill-advised Snapchats from long ago are stored on a server somewhere. To make your Snapchat more secure you're going to want to enable two-factor authentication, something that came on-board in mid-2015 after a security breach got everyone scared. Quite right too.

Go to Settings, then tap on Login Verification. This lets you enable security that will text a verification code to your mobile should someone try to use your account on another device. So if your phone suddenly receives an unsolicited Snapchat code, something's up. From this area in Settings you can also 'forget' devices signed in to your account, which is important if you're lending someone your phone or tablet.

11. Travel mode saves you battery, and potentially some cash

Snapchat can't afford to be slow. Our patience lasts for about 0.3 seconds these days. Not that we stuck around to test that. To get that quick-snap feel it pre-downloads content so there's zero buffering when you actually tap on links. However, it uses a bit more battery and data, which is potentially bad news if you're using the phone abroad.

To switch this style off you can turn on something called Travel Mode, which restricts how much mobile data Snapchat uses. You'll find this in Settings > Manage (under the Additional Services header).

12. How to add music to your Snaps

A lot of Snapchats just feature people gurning to the camera. But if you want to give your ones a bit of cinematic sauce, you can add a soundtrack. All you have to do is start the music playing in the respective app, then jump into Snapchat and shoot away.

It's not fancy, and some clever timing is required if you really want to nail the effect, rhythm-wise. But it's a great way to outdo your friends' amateur hour efforts. We don't think this works with every audio app, but it does work with Spotify and a few others.

13. How to get a sweet profile GIF animation

Ever noticed that some people have a neat little animated profile pic when their faces pop up? Making your own only takes a couple of seconds. From the main app screen, just flick downwards to bring up the Profile display then tap the yellow ghost graphic. This will bring up a shutter button.

Tap that and a five-frame exposure will kick off. It's a bit like a virtual photo booth. You have just under a second between exposures, so if you want to do something clever (the order of the day on Snapchat and Vine), you'd better be quick.