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Snapchat Made You A Collection Of All Your Best 2017 Snaps — Here's How To Find It

Snapchat; remixed by Lucia Peters

With just a few days left in the year, many of us are looking back on the previous 12 months with a little help from our social media feeds — and thanks to Snapchat’s new 2017 Stories feature, which is accessed through Snapchat Memories, there’s a new way to recall moments you might otherwise have forgotten about. What’s more, learning how to use your 2017 Story in Snapchat Memories is as easy as pie. Who’s ready to give the year the send-off it deserves?

The Snapchat Memories feature was first rolled out during the summer of 2016 as a way to let users save their Snaps and Stories into personal collections of favorite moments they’ve captured with the app. Stories, however, have been around for much longer — they debuted early in Snapchat’s history, first becoming available in October of 2013. With Stories, users gained access to something similar to the timeline features that many social media platforms — notably Facebook and Twitter — had already been using; the difference, though, was that it tweaked the idea to fit within Snapchat’s ephemeral nature, operating more like a slideshow that disappeared within 24 hours than a static timeline through which users could endlessly scroll. Together, Stories and Memories helped cement Snapchat’s unique position in the social media world — and the 2017 Story feature, which arrived on Dec. 27, is yet another way the app is harnessing its strengths to bring its users a new twist on an old favorite.

Not unlike Facebook’s Year In Review videos, each Snapchat user’s 2017 Story is unique, curated from their own photo and video Snaps from throughout the year. The Snaps that go into each 2017 Story are chosen by the app based on things like location, date, or caption; together, they create the story of your year, which you can then watch, save, and/or send to friends. If you find that your 2017 Story is missing some of your favorite moments, though, worry not; you can also edit it to personalize it even more. All in all, it’s the perfect way to look back at your favorite memories from 2017 as we get ready to bid the year goodbye and welcome in 2018.

Accessing your 2017 Story in the Memories feature of Snapchat is, thankfully, super easy. Here’s how to do it:

1

Find The “Capture” Button

Tanya Ghahremani/Bustle

If you’ve ever used Snapchat before, you don’t need me to tell you where the “Capture” button is; just so we have all our bases covered, though, I’m going to tell you where it is anyway: It’s the big, round button at the bottom-center of the screen that you see as soon as you boot up the app.

2

Tap The “Memories” Button…

Tanya Ghahremani/Bustle; remixed by Lucia Peters

The “Memories” button is that little icon directly below the “Capture” button, circled here in red. Tap it.

3

…OR Just Swipe Up

Tanya Ghahremani/Bustle

Simply swiping up while you’re on the Capture screen will also bring up the Memories screen. Tap or swipe; it’s your call.

4

Go To The “All” Tab

Tanya Ghahremani/Bustle

The Memories screen has a bunch of tabs at the top. Make sure you’re on the “All” tab (and if you’re not, just tap it to go to it).

5

Find The Section Titled “A Look Back At 2017”

Snapchat

Right at the top of the “All” tab on the Memories screen, you should see a big ol’ rectangle showing a night sky with some fireworks and the words “A Look Back At 2017” emblazoned across it. This is your 2017 Story. Congratulations! You’ve found it. From here, you can do whatever you like with it by tapping any of the three options available for it: You can Edit your 2017 Story, Save it to your main Stories roll, or Send it to friends like you would any other Story.

And that's all there is to it! Happy New Year, everyone — here's to continuing to fight the good fight in 2018 and beyond.