I finally blocked Snapchat Spotlight + Stories on iOS while keeping Snaps/Chat working

I finally blocked Snapchat Spotlight + Stories on iOS while keeping Snaps/Chat working

I’ve been trying to do this for over a year: keep Snapchat for messaging, sending/receiving Snaps, etc., but completely get rid of the Spotlight and Stories feeds.

I finally got it working using AdGuard DNS.

I’m on iPhone/iOS 26. Your results may vary depending on region/app version.

Go to:

Servers → Default → Server settings → User rules → Open editor

Replace the rules with:

Save the rules.

IMPORTANT: I had to completely uninstall Snapchat and reinstall it AFTER setting up the DNS rules. Simply adding the rules while Snapchat was already installed didn't work reliably for me.

After reinstalling, this is what I get:

So Snapchat basically still works as a messaging app, but the endless-scroll feeds are gone.

I used the AdGuard DNS query log to figure out which Snapchat domains my phone was actually contacting. The key one that finally made Spotlight stop loading was:

And this one stopped the Stories feed:

I’m posting this because I spent HOURS trying to find a way to do this without Guided Access, screen recording, third-party Snapchat clients, or completely blocking Snapchat. Hopefully this helps someone else.