Does Snapchat perform content labeling on images before or after a user moves them into My Eyes Only?
Executive summary
Snap’s public documentation says Snapchat adds automated content labels to items saved in Memories (and to camera roll content if access is granted) to power search and personalization [1] [2], and it also explains that users move Snaps from Memories into My Eyes Only after saving them [3]; the available sources therefore indicate labeling happens to content in Memories — which is the state a Snap is in before a user moves it into My Eyes Only — but Snapchat’s published pages do not explicitly state whether labeling runs again, stops, or is undone after an item is moved into My Eyes Only [1] [3] [2].
1. What Snapchat’s product pages say about labeling
Snap’s privacy and product documentation is explicit that the company “adds labels based on the content” for items saved to Memories and to the device camera roll (if the app has permission), and that those labels are used for search and to surface similar content in other parts of the service such as Spotlight [1] [2].
2. What Snapchat’s support pages say about My Eyes Only
Snapchat’s support guidance describes My Eyes Only as a passcode-protected area inside Memories: users save Snaps or Stories to Memories (or import from the camera roll) and then can move those saved items into My Eyes Only, which requires the My Eyes Only passcode to view [3] [4].
3. How the two descriptions overlap in time — where labeling occurs relative to the move
Because Snap states it labels content “saved to Memories” and separately explains that users move Snaps from Memories into My Eyes Only, the simplest reading of the published material is that labeling is applied while content is in Memories — i.e., before a user completes the explicit “hide” action that places a Snap into My Eyes Only [1] [3].
4. What the sources do not confirm (important limitation)
Snap’s help and privacy pages do not explicitly answer whether labels created while an item is in Memories persist, are visible to Snap systems while the item is stored in My Eyes Only, are deleted when a Snap is moved, or whether any additional automated labeling runs after content is placed in My Eyes Only; the available pages simply do not state that detail [1] [3] [2].
5. Privacy implications and reasonable inferences from the documentation
Given Snapchat’s statement that Memories content is labeled to power search and personalization, a reasonable inference is that labeling occurs at least once when an item is in Memories [1] [2]; however, because Snap presents My Eyes Only as an encrypted, passcode-protected subset of Memories [3] [2], users should note that the documentation does not confirm whether that protection extends to preventing internal automated labeling or whether labels remain attached to the file on Snap’s systems — a gap that matters for users seeking assurance that metadata or content-derived labels are not retained after locking a Snap away [3] [1] [2].
6. Bottom line — answer to the question
Based on Snapchat’s own published pages, content labeling is described as occurring for items “saved to Memories,” and My Eyes Only contents are created by moving items out of Memories into a locked folder; therefore the available documentation supports the conclusion that labeling is applied to content while it resides in Memories — i.e., before a user moves it into My Eyes Only — but Snapchat’s public documentation does not definitively say whether labeling is removed, altered, or continues after the move, so a definitive answer about post-move labeling cannot be drawn from the provided sources alone [1] [3] [2].