While you wait
How long does a Snapchat export take?
Often a few hours to a couple of days, and Snapchat’s own help page says it aims to deliver within 7 days, with large downloads taking longer. Small accounts often get the email the same day; a library of several thousand memories takes longer, and everything slows down when a lot of people ask at once. With a September date going round, that is about now. There is no progress bar, so there is nothing to refresh. This is the part nobody can hurry, which is the whole argument for requesting it now rather than when you need it.
What happens, in order
Minute one
You submit the request
Settings → Privacy Controls → My Data. Tick “Export your Memories” and “Export JSON Files”, choose All Time, submit. Your side is done and takes about two minutes.
Hours, up to about a week
Snapchat builds the archive
Snapchat's own help page says it strives to deliver within 7 days, and that large downloads can take longer. Nothing happens that you can see, and there is no progress bar to check. Small accounts often land the same day. A library of several thousand memories usually takes longer, and everything takes longer when a lot of people ask at once.
The email
A download link arrives
It comes from Snapchat to the address on your account. Check spam: it is a bulk send with a link in it, which is exactly what spam filters are built to catch.
Within a few days of that
The link expires
Reports of the window range from around 72 hours to seven days, and Snapchat doesn't document it clearly. Treat it as short: download the day the email lands, not the weekend after. Miss it and you start the wait again.
When it goes wrong
It's been three days and nothing has arrived
Check spam first, then check the email address on your Snapchat account is one you still read. If both are fine, request it again. A second request doesn't cancel the first, and whichever arrives first is the one you use.
The archive came but there are no photos in it
“Export your Memories” wasn't ticked. Without it you get a thorough account history containing no pictures at all. Request again with the box on.
There are photos but no JSON folder
“Export JSON Files” wasn't ticked. That file is where the real dates and locations live. Without it, nothing can put them back, including this site. Worth requesting again for.
I got seven ZIP files
Normal for a large library. Snapchat splits the archive, and only the first part carries the JSON. Keep all of them together; a tool given one part of a split export sees a pile of media with no dates attached.
The download keeps failing partway
These are large files on a link with a deadline. A wired connection or a download manager that resumes beats retrying on hotel wifi. Start it on the day it arrives so a failed attempt isn't a lost archive.
And then the part nobody warns you about
The archive arrives with the capture dates, GPS and captions stripped out. Every photo carries the day the export was built, so eight years of memories land in your library on a single date, out of order, with the text and stickers sitting in separate files beside them. The real dates and coordinates are in a JSON file right there in the ZIP. Snapchat just doesn’t put them back into the media.
That is what this site fixes, in your browser, without uploading anything. Come back when the email lands. The first 500 files are free, so you can check the dates landed before deciding whether it was worth $5.