As of 2024, Snapchat has over 347 million daily active users and has become a top global social media app. But unlike other platforms, customizing its notification sounds—ringtone for incoming calls or notifications, for example—is much more complicated on an iPhone. Here’s how you can change your Snapchat ringtone on an iPhone and a few tips and workarounds.

The Quickest Way to Change Your Snapchat Ringtone

• Open Settings on Your iPhone

Head to the iPhone Settings app, scroll down to the Sounds & Haptics option.

• Change Your Default Ringtone

While you can't customise the notification sound directly in the Snapchat app, you can change the standard ringtone and that can affect how Snapchat will sound as it uses the default tone. Tap Ringtone to choose your preferred ringtone in Sounds & Haptics.

• If you want to do some travel, use the Shortcuts App for advanced customization:

On iPhone, Shortcuts comes in handy as a workaround to get more control over notifications.

• Go to Automation in Open Shortcuts.
• Tap Create Personal Automation.
• Tap App, then Snapchat.

Now set the condition to Is Opened and add an action for example playing a sound.

With this method, you can choose unique sounds specific for Snapchat notifications but this won’t change the default Snapchat ringtone.

Enabling of Custom Ringtones via iTunes

• If you have custom ringtones you can sync those with iTunes or Apple Music on your computer.
• Go to iTunes and choose your iPhone.
• Drag and drop your custom ringtone to Tones.
• When your iPhone syncs, the tone will be under Settings > Sounds & Haptics > Ringtone.

Understanding iOS Limitations

The ringtones may work around the creative means, but it is essential to understand the inherent limitation of app specific ringtones for iOS. Unlike Android, where users can go in and make changes to alerts/actions within an individual app like Snapchat, users are unable to do the same for iOS. These are limits imposed by iOS’s closed system, prioritising user security and privacy, that limit third–party access to system level functions such as notification sounds.

Yet as people seek more ways to customise apps—and in highly customizable apps like Snapchat, this is only natural—it would not be surprising at all for Apple to take the wraps off of further granular control over app notifications in future iOS updates. For now, users can only use these alternatives to change their notification sound on Snapchat and other apps.

Growing Popularity of Custom Ringtones

A popular trend now is to customise ringtones, particularly with apps being more popular, such as Snapchat and TikTok, which allows one to send messages instantly. A 2023 report notes that more than 40 percent of smartphone users in every corner of the globe remain happier with custom ringtones than default ones. This is indicative of the growing appetite for personalised experiences, and especially so for younger demographics that Snapchat users. Due to platform’s casual and interactive nature, users feel more comfortable expressing themselves not only visually, but audibly also.

How to Disable Snapchat Notifications on iPhone

Other than ringtones, you want to make sure you can control how you receive notifications on Snapchat. Here’s how you can tweak these settings:

• Open Snapchat

Open Snapchat, and press on your profile icon in the upper left corner.

• Go to Settings

Tap in the top right then, to access Settings.

• Notification Settings

When you get to the bottom of Notifications, customise which types of notifications you want Snapchat to send you.

Control the Sounds for Individual Chats

Snapchat doesn’t have a feature for customising chat notifications for a friend or a group, but you can mute or enable notification for a conversation by long pressing it when you are in a chat with a friend and selecting Message Notifications.

Snapchat’s Impact and Stats

The user base of Snapchat keeps growing too, with 59% of U.S. internet users aged 13 to 24 using Snapchat and 52% aged 25 to 34. Due to the popularity of the app, there’s growing demand for more customization in the way that notifications can be set up and the types of notification that can be presented. Although iOS restrictions hinder direct ringtone changes that are compatible with Snapchat, the techniques mentioned work for iOS.

Conclusion

You can change the Snapchat ringtone on iPhone through workarounds such as customising your default ringtone, using the Shortcuts app, and silencing the ringtone altogether. Snapchat doesn’t offer direct in app customization but with the help of Apple’s tools you can personalise your experience to a certain extent.