The social media app created to make your photos and videos disappear in 10 seconds or less is now letting you save them directly within the app. Snapchat’s new feature, dubbed Snapchat Memories and announced yesterday, saves your “Snaps” and “Stories” in a searchable, archived album. The company is rolling out the new feature on iOS and Android on the West Coast, with the goal of global availability in 30 days.

Snapchat Memories. What is it?

Snapchat Memories is designed to give users the ability to share past Snaps and Stories with others, even after they’ve disappeared from the public eye. You’ll be able to search your saved Snaps and Stories with keywords like “vacation” or “dog” – the app then aggregates all the relevant posts and puts them in a new Story that users can show friends and family. Marking past Snaps as “My Eyes Only” lets you keep certain Snaps private; they won’t show up in those searches (good news for those triple-chinned selfies you send to your closest friends).

Users will also be able to re-post past Snaps, identified by the white border around the photo or video signifying its past origins. You can even edit old Snaps to run together in a new Story; or take a photo/video, save it and wait to post it until the timing is better (effectively allowing users to “live in the moment” more).

Snapchat’s default settings will save your Snaps to Memories instead of to your phone’s camera roll, unless you change it to choose one or the other (or both). For those prone to losing their phones without backing up the content, this means your Memories will be available even on new devices.

What do you think of Snapchat Memories?

Are you excited or terrified? Let us know by tweeting @BIGfishPR!