The latest Snapchat update has been controversial to say the least, with many people pining for the old layout. Fortunately, with a little technical know-how, it’s possible to restore the old layout of Snapchat – at least for now.
The new layout takes inspiration from social media giants like Facebook and Instagram. With Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter all becoming more fully featured, there’s a decent amount of overlap between the different services. From Instagram and Facebook clearly using Snapchat’s story ideas to Snapchat adding a new algorithmic process that shows users content they will be interested in, these platforms are beginning to look more and more alike – for better or for worse.
For many people, it’s definitely for worse. Those looking to return to the old layout can do so by following a few steps, but it does involve jailbreaking if you’re on the iOS. Android has it a little easier, fortunately, but it’s still a little bit of an involved process.
So to return the old layout, simply follow the steps included below.
iOS
Jailbreaking the iPhone is a little bit beyond the scope of this guide, but there are plenty of tutorials online for those looking to unlock their iPhone and add more functionality. If you’re running the most recent update for iOS, you unfortunately won’t have access to the ability to restore Snapchat to the old layout. If you’re using something like the Electra + Cydia jailbreak for iOS 11, however, you can move ahead with the steps in this guide.
- Launch Cydia on your iOS device, and navigate to the Sources section. In this section, you’re going to want to add a new repository to download a specific tweak for your jailbroken 2
- iPhone. The link you’re going to want to add is http://codepokes.github.io/
- In Cydia, use the Search functionality in order to find the “snapdecent” tweak – this is the mechanism by which we’ll be able to restore the old layout for Snapchat. Download and install the tweak, and then restart your iPhone if needed.
Those two steps are all you need to revert to the old layout.
Android
Fortunately, due to Android’s more open operating system, it’s a lot easier to install the old layout, and it doesn’t require jailbreaking your device.
- Delete the current version of Snapchat from your device
- Find yourself an APK file of an older version of Snapchat that has the old layout rather than the new version that many are so unhappy with. The update Snapchat 10.22.7.0 is available as an APK file here.
- You’ll need to allow your Android phone to install APK files from untrusted sources. Go to Settings > Security > Unknown Sources and make sure you enable the installation of this new APK file.
- Open the file in order to install it onto your device.
- Once you’ve installed the old layout version of Snapchat, navigate to the Play Store Snapchat page and disable “automatic updates” – this step is especially important to make sure that your newly reverted version doesn’t get overwritten by the new and “improved” version.
It’s important to keep in mind that while this technique works at the time of this article, there’s a chance that Snapchat will disable access to the app for those running an older version.
