What Does Time Sensitive Mean On Snapchat and How Does it Work?

Snapchat, this American multimedia instant messaging application and service is one of the most popular social media items people use worldwide. It is mainly famous for its amazing effects and strange Lens, but that is not all. The developers have tried to make this program more complex and applicable by adding various features. This app was recently updated and presented a new notification feature in May 2023: Time-sensitive notifications. If you are wondering what does time sensitive mean on snapchat, how it works, and how to turn it off, I suggest you don’t waste time and keep reading until the end of this text to find all your answers.

What Does Time Sensitive Mean On Snapchat?

This new feature aims to mark certain notifications as a priority. It means any barrier or restriction cannot cause you to miss any important thing on the app by presenting the time-sensitive feature, even if you have silenced the device or used the “Do not disturb (DND)” or Focus mode. While the developers offer this feature as a useful one and want to help users make a better experience, it might be not acceptable for you that Snapchat prioritized notifications on its own and forced them on you. So, you should go on because, in the next paragraphs, we will talk about how to turn off Time Sensitive Notifications on Snapchat.

How Do Time Sensitive Notifications Work on Snapchat?

As you know, time-sensitive notifications generally refer to notifications that require immediate attention from you, like what ride-hailing apps do, so you understand when the driver has reached their location. Here, the main function of Time Sensitive Notifications on Snapchat is to show some specific messages when using Do Not Disturb mode because you want to be focused but do not want to miss all messages. So, this feature helps you get alerts for some selective calls or messages from Snapchat. These Snapchat notifications break focus mode or do not disturb mode and show important things on your phone’s lock screen for at least an hour to make sure you don’t miss them. 

How Does Snapchat Decide The Priority Of Time Sensitive Notifications?

One of the main reasons Snapchat users don’t like this new feature is that it’s not clear how the app decides this priority and sometimes makes you see things you don’t care about. But as this feature is highly inspired by Apple’s “Time-Sensitive Notification” presented in 2021, we guess it marks notifications from people you interacted with most, like messages, snap replies, and new snap stories from best friends, to ensure you don’t miss and see anything important. On the other hand, another group of people believe that the app uses this feature to show notifications from users who are mostly ignored.

How to Turn Off Time Sensitive Notifications on Snapchat On iPhone?

By the way, if you don’t like Snapchat to mark or classify specific notifications as time-sensitive for you, the good news is that you have the chance to turn it off. And if you don’t know how to turn off Time Sensitive notifications on Snapchat on your iPhone, just follow the below steps:

1. Go to Settings and open Notifications.
2. Go down and find the Snapchat section, then choose it.
3. Here, you should click to toggle off the Time-Sensitive Notifications feature and that is over.

How to Turn Off Time Sensitive Notifications on Snapchat On Android?

While turning off the time-sensitive notifications feature is not available on Android phones because there is no feature like this on these phones, you can follow the below steps and customize Snapchat notifications as you wish:

1. Open your phone’s Settings.
2. Find the Apps section and choose the Snapchat tab, usually shown on your recent apps list. (If not, you should tap to see all apps to find the Snapchat app).
3. Choose the Notifications option.
4. Here, you can decide which notifications you want to turn off because you don’t care.

How to Turn on Time Sensitive Notifications on Snapchat?

Finally, I want to explain how you can manually turn on the Time Sensitive Notifications on Snapchat if you regret turning it off and want to use it again. This is not a complicated process, and you can reach it only by following the below steps:

1. Go to the Settings app and choose “Focus.” 
2. Choose the Focus mode you want.
3. Click on  “Apps” below the Allowed Notifications and enable “Time-Sensitive”.
4. Here, you can go to the Snapchat app and turn the dedicated toggle on.

Conclusion

As explained above, the Snapchat Time Sensitive notification feature is designed to help users not miss any important notifications. But no one knows the exact reason for that and how it finds which messages should be prior. By the way, in the above text, we talked about the most possible claims and tried to figure out what does time sensitive mean on snapchat, how it works, and how you can turn it on or off. Still, you can ask all your questions below in the comments, and we try to find the best answer for you. Also, we will be happy to see you share your experiences there.

FAQ

• Do time sensitive snaps disappear?

These notifications last at least an hour until you see them to ensure you will not miss them.

• Why does snapchat say time sensitive for one person?

While the reason is not defined anywhere, we guess it is because the app believes some notifications are high in priority and very important to you.

• Why does Snapchat mark some notifications as “time-sensitive?

Basically, this system tries to ensure you don’t miss any important notifications.