Snapchat Memories Downloader

A Python script for downloading all memories from your Snapchat data export. I made this after struggling with Snapchat's provided solution which is (intentionally?) terrible.

Summary of Improvements Compared to Basic Snapchat Export

• Filenames of photos/videos are set based on their date so it is clear when each was taken.
• Sets metadata for photos/videos correctly so services like Google or Apple Photos know when they were taken and can sort/filter appropriately.
• Automatically extracts the base image/video from Snaps with overlays (text/stickers) instead of leaving it as a zip with no extension.
• Doesn't rely on browser download management which may block multiple file downloads.
• Checks that files have actually downloaded, and retries if they fail.
• Skips already downloaded files so you can stop it and resume, or only download new Snaps since your last export.
• Configurable number of parallel downloads, retries, delay between files.

Features

More Reliable Downloads

• Automatic retry with exponential backoff (3 attempts per file by default)
• Verification of successful downloads (HTTP 200 + file size > 0)

Progress Tracking

• Progress bar with file count and percentage
• Shows current file being downloaded (type and date)
• Summary report at completion

Resume Capability

• Saves download state to JSON file
• Automatically skips already downloaded files
• Can be interrupted and resumed without losing progress

Organized Storage

• Images saved to downloads/images/
• Videos saved to downloads/videos/
• Files named with timestamp and unique ID: YYYY-MM-DD_HH-MM-SS_{sid}.{ext}

Error Handling

• Failed downloads logged to downloads/failed_downloads.log
• Continues on individual failures, doesn't crash
• Detailed error messages for troubleshooting

Zip Extraction

• Snaps with overlays are downloaded as zips (with no extension - thanks Snapchat).
• Automatically extracts the main image from the zip and discards the rest.
• (I may add the ability to optionally combine the overlays into a final image instead.)

Requirements

• Python 3 - I am using 3.13.7 but I think any recent ish version should be fine
• Exiftool installed and accessible in path (if you open a CMD/terminal and enter exiftool it shouldn't say it doesn't exist)

Setup

1. Export your Snapchat memories from the Snapchat desktop website.
2. Place the files from this repo (the two .py files and requirements.txt) in the root folder (MYDATA~xxxxxx).

3. Install required Python packages.

pip3 install -r requirements.txt

Basic Usage (Sequential)

To download all memories:

python3 download_snapchat_memories.py html/memories_history.html

To set metadata dates of photos and videos:

python3 set_snapchat_metadata.py downloads/

Parallel Download and Customization (Recommended)

# Conservative parallel (5 workers and 0.5 second delay - worked for me and was fast enough I didn't bother going further)
python3 download_snapchat_memories.py html/memories_history.html --workers 5 --delay 0.5

Custom Output Directory

python3 download_snapchat_memories.py html/memories_history.html -o my_memories

Increase Retry Attempts

python3 download_snapchat_memories.py html/memories_history.html --max-retries 5

All Options Combined

python3 download_snapchat_memories.py html/memories_history.html \
  --output my_snapchat_memories \
  --workers 5 \
  --delay 0.2 \
  --max-retries 5

To set metadata dates of photos and videos:

python3 set_snapchat_metadata.py downloads/

Command Line Options

Option	Short	Default	Description
html_file	-	Required	Path to the memories_history.html file
--output	-o	downloads	Output directory for downloaded files
--delay	-d	1.0	Delay between downloads in seconds
--max-retries	-r	3	Maximum retry attempts per file
--workers	-w	1	Number of concurrent download workers (1=sequential, 5=recommended)

Output Structure

downloads/
├── images/
│   ├── 2025-11-10_14-44-41_{unique-id}.jpg
│   ├── 2025-11-09_20-58-43_{unique-id}.jpg
│   └── ...
├── videos/
│   ├── 2025-11-07_14-32-49_{unique-id}.mp4
│   ├── 2025-10-27_00-08-03_{unique-id}.mp4
│   └── ...
├── download_state.json (tracks progress)
└── failed_downloads.log (if any failures occur)

Resume After Interruption

If the download is interrupted (Ctrl+C, network issue, etc.), run the same command again:

python3 download_snapchat_memories.py html/memories_history.html

etc

The script will:

1. Load the previous download state from download_state.json
2. Skip files that were already downloaded
3. Continue from where it left off

Important Notes

Download Links Expire: When you trigger the export from Snapchat, you must download your export archive within 3 days. And then you must download all the files from that export archive within 7 days.

Snaps with Overlays: Currently, the overlays are discarded and only the base image/video is retained. I may look into merging the overlays onto the base image in the future but I made this for personal/family use and that wasn't a priority.

Troubleshooting

"No memories found" Error

• Verify you're pointing to the correct HTML file
• Ensure the HTML file contains the memories table

Script Crashes

• Check that all dependencies are installed: pip3 install -r requirements.txt
• Review the error message for specific issues
• Check downloads/failed_downloads.log for details

Dependencies

• requests>=2.31.0 - HTTP library for downloads
• beautifulsoup4>=4.12.0 - HTML parsing
• tqdm>=4.66.0 - Progress bar display
• piexif>=1.1.3 - Adding date metadata to images
• (exiftool - installed separately)

License

This script is provided as-is for personal use in downloading your own Snapchat data export. Feel free to do whatever you want with it. I made it for personal/family use and thought others might be interested as Snapchat's provided solution is bad.