Delete a Retweet
Retweeting is a great way to spread the word when somebody says something that you think should be shared easily. Twitter has an official "retweet" action that allows you to do this. Luckily, if you retweet something that you later decide you would rather not share, you can just as easily revert the action and delete any trace of your retweet. Poof!
Contents
Steps
From the Mobile App
- Open the Twitter app on your phone. Find an icon with a blue bird and the word "Twitter" underneath it, and tap on it to open the app.
- Navigate to your profile. On the bottom-right corner of your screen, there will be the gray outline of an avatar with the word "Me" underneath it. Tap this button to open your Twitter profile.
- Scroll through your profile to find the retweets you would like to delete. Your profile contains the full history of all of your tweets and retweets. Retweets will show two green arrows cycling between each other beneath the tweet. They will also have the image of the user who posted the original tweet to the left of the tweet.
- Tap on the retweet icon to delete the retweet. This will remove the tweet from your profile, so that neither you nor other users will see it on their Twitter feeds.
- This will not delete the original tweet from the user's timeline.
Delete Retweets You Have Made
- Go to your profile. To do this, click or tap on the picture of your avatar at the top-right corner of your screen. A drop-down menu will appear. Click on the name of your Twitter handle (or, on the mobile site, tap on "Profile"). You will now be on your Twitter profile, which contains the history of all of the tweets, replies, and retweets you have made and received.
- Find the retweets you would like to delete. Scroll through your Twitter profile to see the full history of your retweets. You can recognize which tweets you have retweeted by looking below the tweet for the retweet icon: two green arrows pointing in a circle.
- Tap or click on the Retweet icon. This will "undo", or remove the retweet you made from your profile, so that neither you nor other users will see it on their Twitter feeds.
- This will not delete the original tweet from the user's timeline.
Delete Copied Tweets From Another User
- Know the difference between a retweet and a copied tweet. One way a tweet that somebody else has written may end up on your profile is if you manually re-post their tweets. This happens when you copy and paste a tweet from another user into a tweet of your own and then post the tweet. These are technically not retweets and the process of removing them is the same as it would be for a regular tweet, so what follows is an explanation of how to delete tweets from your Twitter profile.
- Go to your profile. The way you find your profile depends on whether you're using Twitter on your computer or on your phone:
- On the mobile app, do this by tapping the avatar at the bottom-right corner of your screen that says "Me".
- On a web browser, click on the picture of your avatar at the top-right corner of your screen. Click on the name of your Twitter handle as it appears in the drop down menu.
- Once on your profile, find the tweet you want to delete. Scroll through your profile to see the full history of your tweets, until you come across the tweet you would like to delete.
- If you remember what the tweet said, you can type keywords from the tweet into the search bar at the top-right corner of your screen to search for a specific tweet (although this method will give you results from other users, too).
- Click on the three grey dots on the bottom-right corner of the tweet you would like to delete. A list of options will appear.
- Click on "Delete Tweet". The tweet will be removed from your profile!
Hide Retweets from Another User
- Recognize a retweet from somebody you're not following. Occasionally, somebody you don't follow will tweet something, which will then be retweeted by somebody you do follow. You can recognize those by the gray "[Twitter user] retweeted" just above the tweet, along with a green retweet icon.
- Go to the user's profile. Click or tap on the name of the user as it appears above the retweet.
- Locate the gray cog on the top-right corner of the user's profile. The button is just to the left of the blue "Following" button. Tap or click on the cog to see a drop-down menu of options.
- Tap or click on "Turn off Retweets". This will prevent you from seeing any future retweets that the user makes. You cannot delete retweets from others from your timeline, so your only recourse, should it become a problem, is to selectively turn off retweets from specific users. Also, there is no method for bulk blocking of retweets. You have to deal with each user individually. To reduce the clutter, visit the home page of the users that you follow.
- You will still see the user's original tweets.
- Note that this is not retroactive: all previous retweets will remain on your timeline.
Tips
- If your Tweets are protected, people cannot retweet them.
- You cannot retweet your own Tweets.
