Snapchat Wants You to Pay for Your Own Memories

I’ve been using Snapchat since 2015. Back then it felt like the easiest way to keep in touch with my cousins, close family, and friends. We’d snap each other throughout the day, and those little moments added up. The best part for me has always been the Memories feature. It wasn’t just about saving funny or important snaps, but about getting reminded of what happened on this day years ago. Sometimes I’d wake up to see a snap from eight years ago with my cousins and it instantly brought me back to that moment.

That’s why this new change hits so hard. Snapchat has decided to cap free storage at 5 GB. Once you hit that limit, they want you to start paying a monthly fee that can run up to FOUR dollars depending on the plan. You’re basically being asked to pay to hold onto your own memories.

Why This Hurts

These aren’t just files sitting in the cloud. They’re real moments. Family cookouts, inside jokes with friends, random road trips, even those blurry selfies that meant nothing at the time but everything now.

We trusted Snapchat to hold onto those memories. For years it felt like they were safe in the app, and now that trust feels broken.

The nostalgia was the magic. Those reminders of what happened on this day eight years ago made mornings brighter. It wasn’t about storage space, it was about reliving the past in a way no other app could really replicate.

What Snapchat Is Doing

Here’s what’s changing. Everyone gets 5 GB of free storage. If you go over that, you’ll need to pay for extra storage. The lowest tier gives you 100 GB for $1.99 a month and higher tiers go up from there. If you don’t pay, older memories that push you past that 5 GB limit won’t be guaranteed safe forever. Snapchat is giving people a 12 month grace period to figure it out, but the pressure is definitely there.

What You Can Do

If you feel like this is the last straw, you can take your memories with you if you decide its time to delete Snapchat. Here’s how:

1. Open Snapchat and tap your profile/Bitmoji in the top left.
2. Tap the gear icon (⚙️) for Settings.
3. Scroll down to My Data.
4. Select Download My Data and request your Memories.
5. You’ll get an email from Snapchat with a link to download everything.

This way, you can keep your snaps backed up without paying for storage.

My Take

Snapchat says this mostly affects heavy users, but for people like me who have been using the app for a decade, it feels like we’re being charged for being loyal.

I still love Snapchat for what it gave me. It was the easiest way to stay connected with family and friends in a quick and fun way. But making people pay to hold onto the very memories that made the app special feels wrong.

Whether you keep using it and pay for more storage or download your memories and move on, just remember one thing. Your memories are yours. Don’t let an app make you feel like you don’t own them.