Skip to Content

How To Get Best Friend Status With Snapchat’s Yellow Heart Emoji

One of the great things about Snapchat is the platform has taken the time to create a system of emojis, where different ones will appear next to a friend’s name, depending on your Snapchat relationship with them. This has led people to deliberately chase these emojis, looking for the requirements necessary to get their favorite, and one of these emojis is the yellow heart.

The yellow heart is given to Snapchat users who are each other’s number one best friends on the platform. Snapchat determines best friends by two people who send the most Snaps to each other, making it exclusive.

Let’s take a closer look at the meaning of the yellow heart on Snapchat, as well as how to get it, what happens if you lose it, and other possible emojis and their meanings.

What is the Meaning of a Yellow Heart on Snapchat?

Snapchat on the phone

While Snapchat allows you to have multiple best friends—determined based on the number of Snaps you send each other—a yellow heart is granted to number one best friends.

So, to have a yellow heart, you must send the most Snaps to each other back and forth. Messages don’t count, as they must be pictures or videos.

The yellow heart doesn’t necessarily correlate to who your number one best friend is in real life, as it’s based only on Snapchat usage. Snapchat has limited ways of telling who someone is closest to.

This is only true if the yellow heart appears next to a contact name in your Snapchat list. People can also send yellow hearts through messages or add them to pictures, and there are no requirements for doing that—as well as the other heart colors available on phone emoji keyboards.

How Do You Get a Yellow Heart on Snapchat?

You can get a yellow heart on Snapchat by being someone’s number one best friend (and vice versa) for less than two weeks. You must send the most Snaps to them, and they, in return, must send the most Snaps to you. After two weeks, the yellow heart will disappear to be replaced with a red one.

If you prefer the yellow heart, there is, unfortunately, no way to make this permanent. Part of the fun of Snapchat emojis is that they require actions, and you can’t pick and choose your emojis or whether they stay or go.

Can You Have a Yellow Heart with More Than One Person?

You can’t have a yellow heart with more than one person. As this is based on your number one best friend and not a list of them, you can only be one person’s number one (and vice versa).

Other Snapchat emojis allow you to share them with multiple people, but unfortunately, the yellow heart isn’t one of them.

What’s the Difference Between a Smiley Face and a Yellow Heart on Snapchat?

As well as a yellow heart, you might notice that some names have a smiley and slightly blushing face beside them. This means they are on your list of best friends and among the top people you send and receive the most Snaps to and from.

Unfortunately, you can have a smiley face beside a maximum of eight people, and Snapchat hasn’t expanded this any further.

The main difference is exclusivity. The smiley face will also stay for longer, whereas the yellow heart will change once you reach two weeks of being best friends with someone.

Can You Get a Yellow Heart Back After Losing It?

If you’ve fallen out of Snapchat’s favor with another user and lost your yellow heart, you’ll have to send a lot of Snaps to get it back. Unfortunately, there’s no other quick fix.

If your yellow heart has moved onto a red one and you want to get it back to yellow for some reason, you’ll have to stop sending each other Snaps until the emoji disappears and start over—and even then, it will last for two weeks.

If the yellow heart truly means a lot to you, it’s best to add it to the contact name on your phone.

What Do Other Snapchat Emojis Mean?

As well as yellow hearts, there are a plethora of other Snapchat emojis you might find next to someone’s name.

The Hearts

There are many hearts you might spot next to someone’s name, including:

  • Yellow Heart: For being someone’s best friend and vice versa for under two weeks.
  • Red Heart: Granted for being their best friend for over two weeks.
  • Pink Heart: Called the super BFF, this is for when you’ve remained best friends for over two months.

If you work your way up to the pink heart and lose it because you stop sending as many Snaps to that person, you will have to start all over again.

Default Emojis

There are also several default smiley face emojis that you might spot next to a contact’s name.

  • Smiley Face: This person is in your top eight best friends.
  • Sunglasses Face: You and this user share a best friend, even though you may not be best friends.
  • Grimacing Face: Your number one best friend is another user’s number one best friend.

Snapstreak Emojis

The fire and 100 emojis are known as the Snapstreak emojis. A Snapstreak is when you and someone else have continuously Snapped at each other every day for some time—not messages, but pictures and videos.

The number will also appear next to the emoji, so you know how long your Snapstreak has been going on, and if one of you fails to send a Snap in 24 hours, you will lose the streak.

The fire emoji is the starting point, and it changes to the 100 after that many days.

If you lose a Snapstreak, you can contact Snapchat support, and they can reinstate your streak, as long as you don’t regularly request this and can provide a lot of information. However, it’s not guaranteed, so if Snapstreak emojis are vital to you, it’s best to keep up.

You may also see an hourglass if your Snapstreak is about to come to an end. Send the user a Snap to keep things going if you see this. Snapstreaks also help increase your Snapchat score.

Other Emojis

There are a few other emojis, such as:

  • A Baby: For a new friend.
  • Birthday Cake: To signal a friend’s birthday.
  • Zodiac Sign: If they’ve entered a birthday, their zodiac sign will also appear.

Rumors have floated around the internet that the mountain emoji is possible if you keep up a Snapstreak or maintain a Snapchat relationship for a certain number of days.

Although Snapchat has never confirmed or denied this, some people have had Snapchats going for hundreds of days and never seen it, leading most people to dismiss this as a rumor.

This is the exhaustive list of Snapchat emojis for now. Of course, if you see any others next to someone’s name, it could be a part of their display name or one they’ve sent you in the chat, but Snapchat keeps its official list of emojis reasonably limited.

To Wrap Things Up

Snapchat 3D icon concept

People have a lot of fun with the emojis on Snapchat and work competitively over Snapstreaks and best friends, adding to the delight of the app.

The yellow heart is an excellent place to start because it’s easy to achieve and doesn’t require a long streak or a lot of pressure—however, you can only have it with one person, so choose wisely. If they let the streak go, the heart falls off.