After being rejected for Windows smartphones, Snapchat is now available on the Microsoft Store

What you need to know

• Snapchat has historically avoided the Windows platform like the plague, with no official apps or support.
• Years after the demise of Windows phones, Snapchat is finally making an appearance in the Microsoft Store.
• This is a Progressive Web App (PWA) that runs through Microsoft Edge on Windows 10 and 11 PCs.
• The app has a tiny 1.4MB install size, and should always be up to date thanks to its web-based nature.

The relationship between Microsoft’s Windows-based ecosystem and the social media platform Snapchat has a rocky past, to put it mildly. Even constructing AR glasses, Snapchat seems to do everything in the past other than support Windows or Windows phones, but that all changes today. As of this month, Snapchat is available in the Microsoft Store.

The absence of Snapchat on Microsoft’s now-dormant Windows phones was a recurrently contentious issue in the community for years (this Windows Central article from 2015 gives you a quick overview from the period, with 400 reader comments to boot). Snapchat is finally making an appearance in the Microsoft Store as a Progressive Web App, or PWA, years after Microsoft shut down the whole mobile Windows platform.

Why does this matter? The software is based on the recently released online version of Snapchat and is run on Microsoft’s Chromium-based Edge browser. This ensures that Snapchat is constantly up to date and has the same same functionality as the web version while only requiring a small 1.4MB install size. Windows will still consider it like a native program even if it runs through Microsoft Edge, giving it a Start Menu icon, notification support, and other features.

Of course, you’ll need a PC running Windows 10 or Windows 11. It’s possible that Snapchat’s rejection of Windows phones played a little part in the platform’s demise, but it’s too late for any one social media app to revive the phones at this point, which are by this point peacefully lying in drawers all over the world. Microsoft is apparently establishing its own mobile app store in an effort to directly compete with Google and Apple rather than attempting to pressure developers to embrace its mobile platforms.

You may already download the Snapchat PWA for free from the Microsoft Store if you’re interested in viewing your Snapchat messages or stories on your preferred Windows laptop or snapping images for Snapchat on your computer (for some reason). Or purposefully stay away from it in memory of the earlier Windows phones.

Snapchat

After years of waiting, Snapchat has finally come to the Microsoft Store. This is a PWA, meaning it has a tiny install size and is reliant on Microsoft Edge to function, but will always be up to date.