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Twitter is a popular social media platform not just because of what it exposes users to but also what it doesn’t. And that doesn’t just include the ability to mute users on the platform. Although that’s certainly easy enough to accomplish. It also goes quite a bit further, with all the tools in place to learn how to completely mute words and phrases on Twitter.
That means it’s entirely possible to avoid spoilers for your favorite new movie or game. Or to avoid conversations about topics that tend to get overblown or overheated. If you want to avoid politics, for instance, that’s actually easy enough to accomplish. And the same goes for any other topic or turn of phrase. Effectively removing posts with those words or phrases from your feed.
Going through the steps to figure all of that out, however, isn’t nearly as straightforward. And that’s for the same reasons as some of our other how-to guides. Namely, because there are different steps to follow on mobile and on desktop. But also because iOS — for iPhones and iPads — differ from Android.
So that’s exactly what this guide sets out to explain.
How to mute words or phrases on Twitter
As noted above, the process for working out how to mute words or phrases on Twitter isn’t as easy as following a single set of steps across all platforms. Unfortunately, that also means that, since we don’t have an iPhone or iPad on hand to show the steps, there aren’t going to be any accompanying images below for the iOS segment. But, of course, if you’re on this site, that likely doesn’t matter much to you.
Before getting started, there are a few points worth noting, however. Namely, you don’t need to use words or phrases with different capitalization or punctuation. Twitter will automatically ignore both. You can also mute mentions of accounts this way — but not the accounts themselves, as there’s a different process for that — by muting “@” and then the username or handle. Hashtags are also muted via this function, which is worth being aware of.
Now, without further ado, let’s get started.
From your iPhone
- Open up the Twitter app
- Locate a post containing the keyword or phrases you’d like to learn how to mute on Twitter — or search for a post containing the phrase or words
- Long-press on the word you want to mute. Twitter will present a pop-up style menu
- Select “Mute” from the menu
- iOS will take you to a separate page. The page shows options for muting words. In addition to options for where to mute them — including from your timeline or notifications — and who they’ll be muted for — people you follow or those who you don’t. You’ll also be given an option to choose how long to mute them for
- Select the options you’d like to use
- Tap Save at the top right-hand side of the UI
On an Android device …or iOS
Android doesn’t feature the same on-post, context menu-based option to get to the muting page. However, just as with iOS, you can use the full Twitter menu. So learning how to mute words or phrases in Twitter posts on the world’s most popular mobile OS is also possible. And, if you need to regain access to muted words on iOS, this segment of the guide will help.
- Open up the Twitter application
- Tap or otherwise select your profile icon, located in the top left-hand corner of the UI
- In the resulting sidebar menu, select “Settings and privacy”
- Then select “Privacy and safety” from the resulting menu
- Finally, select “Mute and block” to find the appropriate Settings menu
- In the Mute and block menu, tap or otherwise select the “Muted words” option
- To add a word, tap on the plus-shaped icon and enter the words or phrases you’d like to mute on Twitter. You’ll also be presented a list of options for where and from whom, as well as for how long, to mute the words
- Conversely, you can also follow steps one through six here to un-mute words or phrases, as shown in the images below. Including the ability to long-press and delete multiple words or phrases from your Twitter mute list at once. Then, tap the word or phrase you want to remove. Select “Delete word” or “Change mute time”
How to mute words on desktop Twitter
- In your favorite browser on a desktop platform — or in desktop mode on mobile, open the Twitter website
- Select the “More” option from the left-hand menu
- Select “Settings and Privacy” from the resulting menu
- Next, select “Privacy and safety” and then choose “Mute and block”
- In the right-hand menu, select “Muted words”
- Click — or tap, on touchscreens — the plus-shaped icon at the top right-hand corner of the UI
- Add a word in the field at the top — we’ve opted for “spoiler” — and then adjust the available options, just as on mobile
- Select the “Save” button
- Repeat for any additional words or phrases you’d like to mute
- To un-mute words or phrases, return to the menu using steps one through five in this guide
- Select the desired word, if you’d like to change mute settings without unmuting the word, as shown in the images below
- Select the crossed-out speaker icon next to the word, if you’d like to unmute it entirely. Then select the “Unmute” option in the pop-up window
