Guide
Corrupted Snapchat ZIPs: Why It Happens and How to Fix It
You requested your data from Snapchat, downloaded all the ZIP files, and think you're good. However if you take a closer look at the files, you may see that some of them are really small for zip files, often times around 220 Bytes.
Or maybe you tried uploading them for processing on SnapEasy and they got rejected. This guide explains what these broken files are, why Snapchat gives them to you, and exactly how to get the real ones.
How to tell if an export ZIP is corrupted
The fastest check is file size. A real Snapchat export part almost always weighs hundreds of megabytes to 2 GB, because it's packed with your photos and videos. A corrupted one is a few hundred bytes, as mentioned before, roughly around 220 bytes.
Here's a real example from a support case we handled: Snapchat provided 21 zip files.
mydata...X-9.zip was a proper 2 GB archive full of memories.
mydata...X-13.zip from the same list, was only 220 bytes.
That second "ZIP" cant contain any images or videos at all. If we unzip it, more likely than not we will find a short error message from Snapchat's servers saying the download link had expired.
To check your own files:
- On a computer: look at the Size column in Finder or File Explorer. Anything measured in bytes or KB (rather than MB or GB) is broken.
- On a phone: open your Files app, find the downloads, and tap for details. Same rule, bytes or KB means broken.
Why Snapchat gives you broken files
When you request your data from Snapchat, they prepare the export and give you a window of time to download it. The download links they generate are temporary, and that's where things can go wrong:
The links expire. If you start downloading close to the end of that window, or you have slower internet and your download session stretches on long enough, it can happen that the remaining links quietly stop working. Instead of failing to download the file and alerting you, Snapchat's servers respond with a tiny error file, and your browser saves it under the ZIP's normal name. It looks like you downloaded the file. You didn't.
Slow connections make it worse. If you're downloading to your phone over a slow or flaky connection, each multi-gigabyte part takes a while, and the links for the parts you haven't reached yet keep aging toward expiry. Downloading many parts in parallel on a phone is a common way to end up with a mix of real and broken files.
This behavior is entirely on Snapchat's side; no downloader tool, browser, or phone setting can prevent them from serving an expired-link error instead of your data.
How to fix it
1. Re-download the broken parts, one at a time.
Go back to Snapchat's My Data page and download each corrupted part again. Do it strictly one at a time: press download, let it finish completely, verify the size, then start the next one. Sequential downloads keep each link fresh when it's used and avoid the parallel-download trap.
2. If your My Data request has expired, request the export again.
Snapchat only keeps a prepared export around for a limited period, typically around 3-4 days. If the download page is gone or every link errors out, submit a new My Data request and wait for the fresh email.
3. If you re-request, re-download everything — good and bad.
This one surprises people: Snapchat doesn't guarantee your memories are split across the ZIPs in any particular order. A new export may distribute them completely differently, so your old "good" files and new files won't line up as a set. Download the complete new set and delete every zip from the old batch so they can't get mixed together.
4. Verify sizes before uploading anywhere.
Before you waste precious time uploading 100s of Gigabytes to a tool like SnapEasy, do a manual check of the file list one more time. Every part should be at least a few megabytes, and typically 0.5–2 GB. If anything is measured in bytes, fix it first; it contains none of your memories and will be rejected by SnapEasy.