When you send a message on Snapchat and get the ‘Pending’ message underneath their name the most likely reason is that you have poor internet connectivity, the second most likely reason is that your account has been temporarily restricted due to a breach of their community guidelines.
Many websites claim that this can also be caused by the person you are sending a message to unfriending you, this was a common problem in 2021 however in our tests (conducted in January 2023) we found this was no longer the case.
Potential Causes Of The ‘Pending’ Message:
1. Poor Internet Connection
If you send a message and you have poor internet connectivity in our tests we found that you will usually get a grey sending message with a spiraling icon to the left of it as shown below:
However some users have reported that they have got the grey pending message due to poor internet connectivity.
This could be because your Snapchat account has sent the message to the Snapchat server but they can’t yet confirm it has reached your friend’s account due to your poor internet connection.
2. Snapchat Is Down Or Experiencing Technical Issues
Messages can be marked as Pending if Snapchat is struggling with technical issues or has gone down.
To check if there are any ongoing issues on the Snapchat server you can check these two places:
If there are any technical issues ongoing or Snapchat is down then there’s not much you can do to fix it…just wait, keep your eye on the Snapchat support account for any updates and sooner or later the ‘Pending’ message will be sorted if this is the cause.
3. Your Account Has Been Restricted
Snapchat has strict community guidelines which prevent the following:
- Harassing or bullying other users
- Encouraging violence or dangerous behavior
- Glorifying self-harm
- Impersonating someone else
- Spreading malicious false information
- Anything illegal
- Terrorist, extremist and hate groups are prohibited from Snapchat
- Hate speech of any kind
- Sexually explicit content
If you are found to be in breach of any of these then you could either lose your account or face a temporary account restriction.
While many of the things mentioned in the community guidelines seem extreme it is not uncommon for accounts to be restricted for harassment due to over-sending too many messages to the same account without receiving a reply. If you are suddenly getting the ‘pending’ message constantly then this could be the reason why.
A temporary account restriction prevents you from sending messages or Snaps for up to a month.
If you try to send any messages during this period you will get the ‘pending’ message on all snaps until the month is up.
4. You’ve Been Unfriended – Unlikely To Be The Cause Based On Our Tests
This is a common theory as to why the pending message may appear.
However we tested this by unfriending my personal account and the Followpedia account and then sending a message from one to the other.
What we found was the sending account saw a blue ‘delivered’ message.
The receiving account didn’t get any message, in fact the chat didn’t even show up without accepting their friend request unless we deliberately started a chat with their account by searching for them.
We ran our tests on the Snapchat App version 12.16.0.23 Beta on an Android phone so if you are using an older version or the iPhone version of the app then there may be differences in how it functions which could cause the ‘pending’ message to appear if someone unfriends you.
5. Unapproved Friend Request – Unlikely To Be The Cause Based On Our Tests
Again we tested this by sending a message to an account that hadn’t yet accepted our friend request.
There was no ‘pending’ notification, the message simply said ‘delivered’ in blue.
If you have your message settings set to ‘friend and contacts’ or just ‘friends’ then someone who has not been approved as a friend will not be able to send you a message anyway.
Does Pending On Snapchat Mean You’ve Been Blocked?
No, we tested this by blocking the Followpedia Snapchat account from my personal account.
I logged into the Followpedia account after blocking it and the chat between the two accounts had disappeared, it was also impossible to find my personal account via any searches for it.
So if you see the ‘Pending’ message you haven’t been blocked, if you’ve been blocked their account will essentially become invisible to you.
How To Fix The ‘Pending’ Message
Fixing the pending message is very simple.
9 times out of 10 all you need to do is find an area that has good internet connectivity and this will resolve the problem.
Ideally, connect to a (secure) WiFi network for more stable internet and the pending messages should disappear and be replaced by a received message.
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