Following commissioning, Swallow underwent minor adjustments and prepared for foreign service. On 6 April 1919, she steamed out of Boston Harbor, bound for Inverness, Scotland. There she joined the Minesweeping Detachment of the Northern Barrage. For most of the remainder of 1919. Swallow swept mines from the North Sea Mine Barrage laid by the Allied and Associated Powers during World War I.
The minesweeper returned to the United States late in 1919 and put into the navy yard at Charleston, South Carolina, for overhaul and repairs. Early in 1920, she sailed for the U.S. West Coast and then north to Bremerton, Washington. For the next 18 years, Swallow operated along the northwestern Pacific coast of North America, spending much of her time in Alaskan waters. In 1934, she became a unit of the Aleutian Islands Survey Expedition.
On 19 February 1938, Swallow ran aground at Kanaga Island and was stranded there. The crew was rescued by, which was cited by the Department of the Navy for the rescue.[1] Salvage efforts soon proved impracticable and her name was struck from the Navy Directory on 5 May 1938.