Snapchat is launching a new ‘Memories’ feature that lets users save their own photos and videos, in a significant move away from its ‘self-destucting’ messaging roots.
The new tool comes as the popular chat app looks to take on Apple, Google and Facebook.
Snapchat’s 150 million users can now decide to save their snaps, both still and video, to a new section of the app, accessed by swiping up from the camera screen.
The idea behind the move is that users now have the option to share old photos with people that might have missed them the first time round. .
From there they can also search for other saved photos, both chronologically and with text keywords.
In a demonstration, Snapchat suggested “Hawaii” and “dog”, for example. It’s smarter than simple keyword searches, and is able to recognise objects in the pictures.
Snaps that are over a day old are marked out as being from the past, with a special frame, but more recent ones can be reposted as they are.
“We’ll be rolling out Memories selectively over the next month or so—it’s a big change for our service so we want to make sure everything is running smoothly,” the company stated on its blog. “You’ll receive a chat from Team Snapchat when Memories is ready for you to use.”
The move can also bee seen as a bid to attract older consumers who are used to maintaining collections of photos and other multimedia on platforms like Facebook, Pinterest and Tumblr. This comes as new data suggest that Snapchat is gaining traction with older users.