The best friends emoji on Snapchat is an important feature that allows users to see their closest friends on the app. It takes at least two weeks of consistent communication for the emoji to switch between people. There are a few main factors that determine when the best friends emoji will change, including the frequency of snaps, chats, and interactions. While Snapchat keeps the exact algorithm private, understanding the general timeline and requirements can help Snapchat users.
What is the Best Friends Emoji?
The best friends emoji appears next to contacts in Snapchat when you communicate frequently and interact consistently over a period of time. The emoji will appear as a yellow heart, red heart, pink heart, or gold heart. Each heart represents a #1 best friend. If you and a contact both have yellow hearts, it means you are each other’s #1 best friend.
The best friends list shows your eight closest friends on Snapchat determined by your snapstreaks, interactions, and more. Having one of the special heart emojis appear makes it easy to see your real closest friends at the top of your list.
How Is the Best Friends Emoji Determined?
Snapchat has not provided the exact details of how the algorithm works to determine the best friends emoji over time. However, based on user reports, there are some general factors that seem to impact the emoji:
- Frequency of snaps – Sending snaps back and forth raises your interaction level.
- Chat conversations – Chatting often through the app also raises your communication frequency.
- Reactive content – Replying to stories and snaps rather than just viewing them shows you are engaged.
- Initiating snaps – Starting chats instead of only replying also matters.
- Days snapped – Snapping consistently every day strengthens your connection.
Essentially, the more you interact with a friend on Snapchat in meaningful ways, the more likely the app will shift your best friend emoji within two weeks. Just viewing stories or rarely chatting likely won’t meet the threshold.
How Long Does It Take to Change the Emoji?
It typically takes at least two weeks of consistent, high-level interaction for your Snapchat best friend emoji to change to a new person.
The algorithm looks at your snaps, chats, and responses over the course of 14 days. If your connection strength with a new friend significantly outpaces an old friend over that time, the app will usually switch your emoji to the new person.
For example, if you suddenly start snapping your new friend every day and rarely chat with your former #1 best friend, there’s a good chance your emoji will transition within two weeks.
Factors That Speed Up the Switch
Certain factors can help accelerate the transition to under two weeks:
- Snapping multiple times per day
- Sending chat messages daily
- Quick back-and-forth replies
- Reacting to the majority of their stories
- Consistent interaction over weekends and weekdays
If you and a new friend do all of these things, there’s a good chance you’ll see the emoji swap much faster than two weeks.
Factors That Delay the Switch
On the other hand, these factors may make the emoji switch take longer than 14 days:
- Only snapping every few days
- Long gaps between chat messages
- Lots of one-sided interaction
- Weekday-only communication
- Minimal story reactions
With this kind of limited interaction, it will likely take longer than two weeks for the emoji to change even if you interact with the new friend more than your former bestie.
How to Get Someone’s Best Friend Emoji
If you want to become best friends with someone on Snapchat and get their gold/red/pink/yellow heart emoji, follow these tips:
- Snap them every day consistently. The more you snap, chat, and react to their content, the faster you’ll become best friends.
- Initiate snaps and chats. Don’t just reply to their messages – start conversations yourself.
- Send chat messages between snaps. This increases your interactions beyond just photos/videos.
- React to their stories often. Watching their stories isn’t enough – you need to frequently send chat messages or snaps reacting to their content.
- Maintain communication during weekends too. Don’t just Snap Monday to Friday.
- Avoid large gaps between snaps or chats. To build momentum, aim to snap every day or every other day at most.
- Put effort into your snaps and chats. Thoughtful or funny messages are more engaging than one-word responses.
If you do all of this for two weeks consistently, you should see the emoji pop up by their name. Don’t worry too much if it takes a little longer though – the algorithm works on its own timeline. Just focus on maintaining frequent, high-quality communication.
What to Do If It’s Not Switching
In some cases, you may try to become best friends with someone new and not see the emoji changing over two weeks. Here are some things to try:
- Audit your interactions – Are you actually snapping, chatting, and reacting daily? Or is there a gap in communication you didn’t notice?
- Change up your snap content – Generic selfies may not be engaging them. Try sending snaps of your day, jokes, memes, or asking questions.
- Double check that they are frequently viewing your stories – If not, they may not be as invested in your friendship.
- Verify the timeline – Confirm it’s been at least 14 days, not just an estimate. The algorithm requires two full weeks.
- Be patient – Some friends just use Snapchat less often so it takes longer. Don’t force it.
If you’ve evaluated all of this and it’s still not switching after 3 full weeks, it may indicate they aren’t as interactive of a Snapchat friend. Focus on friends who clearly reciprocate your efforts.
Why Isn’t My Best Friend Emoji Showing Up?
In other cases, your best friends emoji may disappear from someone you know you snap regularly. Here are some possible reasons why it’s not showing up:
- Emoji glitch – Occasionally there are unexplained bugs that remove emojis temporarily.
- Recent friend added – If you just became friends, give it two weeks to appear.
- Travel or busy periods – If your schedules don’t align for a bit, it may temporarily disappear.
- You changed your habits – If you snapped less frequently for a while, the algorithm may have removed it.
- Other friend interacted more – If they started snapping someone else more, your emoji could have been bumped down.
Usually these issues will resolve themselves if you just get back to regularly interacting. If your emoji is gone after a trip or busy week, just resume your usual Snapchatting patterns and it should reappear within a couple of weeks.
Can You Lose Your Best Friends Emoji?
Yes, you can lose your best friend emoji if you stop interacting consistently with that person over time.
Since Snapchat constantly evaluates your connections, a change in your communication habits can cause the emoji to disappear. Here are some ways it can happen:
- Taking a long break from Snapchat for vacation, exams, work, etc.
- Significantly cutting back on how often you snap someone.
- Only replying to their snaps sometimes rather than regularly.
- Stopping reactions and chats in addition to snaps.
- A new friend starts taking over as your #1 bestie based on your habits.
The emoji should disappear within two weeks of a major drop in your interactions. To get it back, resume daily snaps, chats, story reactions, and consistency.
Can You Have Multiple Best Friends?
Snapchat actually allows you to have 8 best friends showing at the top of your list. Each of these besties can earn one of the special emoji hearts by your interactions.
So you don’t just have one #1 best friend – you can have up to eight true besties on Snapchat. Here are the details:
- You can only have one yellow heart best friend at a time. This is your true #1.
- You can have multiple red heart best friends who you chat with often. These signify your other closest friends.
- Pink hearts go to best friends you have been #1 with in the past two months.
- Gold hearts mean you are also their #1 best friend (the same as a yellow heart).
The emojis are fluid based on your friendships, but highlight your inner circle. Shoot for as many special hearts as you can by snapping your true besties daily.
What Happens When You Remove a Best Friend?
If you decide to remove someone as a friend on Snapchat, they will also lose their best friend emoji by your name of course. Here is exactly what happens:
- As soon as you delete them as a friend, their emoji will disappear from your end.
- It may take a couple hours for the change to fully process across Snapchat’s network.
- Within 24 hours, the emoji should disappear from their end as well since you are no longer friends.
- If you refriend the person later, you’ll have to rebuild your emoji from scratch as if they were a new friend.
So if you want to intentionally remove someone’s best friend status, deleting them as a friend is the quickest way to erase the emoji immediately and have them lose it too within a day’s time.
Conclusion
The best friends feature on Snapchat provides a fun way to engage with your closest social circle and track your evolving friendships over time. While the exact emoji algorithm is secret, it’s clear that consistent, high-quality snaps, chats, reactions, and initiation of conversations are key to becoming best friends with someone new.
Aim to deeply interact for two weeks straight and you should see that coveted yellow, red, pink or gold heart pop up. Keep snapping your favorites every day to ensure your inner circle keeps shining through with the special emojis.