Snapchat quietly made a big change to the way messages expire

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One of the hallmarks of Snapchat is that messages you send in the app disappear once they're viewed. It's what initially labeled Snapchat as a sexting app, and it remains a core aspect of the social network today.

There has, however, always been a trick to seeing a message in Snapchat more than once. You were able to replay one message every 24 hours, and if you wanted more replays at your disposal you could pay a $0.99 in-app purchase.

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Snapchat drastically changed how replays work with an update on Thursday night. The same update added the ability to face swap with photos from your camera roll.

Instead of only getting one free replay every 24 hours, every single message you receive in Snapchat can be replayed once before it expires. When you try to reply a snap for the first time after updating the app, you'll see this message explaining the change:

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The only catch is that you have to stay on the left side of the Snapchat app where you initially received the message to replay it. If you open a message, navigate away from it, and then go back to try and replay it you'll be out of luck.

And yes, that means Snapchat has killed purchasable replays. The feature was launched in September 2015 and was the last in-app purchase you could make in Snapchat after the Lens store was shuttered in January.