Make Your Twitter Account Private
Your Twitter account is set to public by default, but you can make it private so that only approved users can subscribe to and view your tweets. Read this article to learn how.
Contents
10 Second Summary
1. Log into your Twitter account. Click on "Settings and Help".
2. Scroll down to "Settings." Click on the "Security and Privacy" tab.
3. Scroll down to the privacy section. Check the "Protect my Tweets."
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the page. Hit "Save changes".
Steps
Privacy Settings
- Understand what protecting your tweets will do. Before your decide to protect your Twitter account and tweets by making them private, be sure that you understand what it entails. Once you make your tweets private:
- Other users will need to make a request to follow you, and you will need to approve all requests.
- Your tweets will only be visible to approved followers.
- Other users will be unable to retweet you.
- Your tweets will not appear in any Google searches, and will only appear in Twitter searches conducted by your approved followers.
- Any @replies you send will not be seen, unless you send them to your approved followers. For example, if you tweet a celebrity they will not be able to see it, as you have not approved them to follow you.
- Anything you tweeted while your account was public will now become private, and will only be viewable or searchable by your approved followers.
- You will only be able to share permanent links to your tweets with your approved followers.
- Log in to your Twitter account with your username and password.
- Click on the "Settings and Help" icon. This is located on the top right-hand side of the page. Scroll down to the "Settings" option and click.
- Click on the tab labeled "Security and Privacy". Scroll down to the privacy section, then check the "Protect my Tweets" box to make your account private.
- Scroll down to the bottom of the settings page, and click on "Save changes". Going forward, all of the tweets you publish will be protected, and will only be seen by your current Twitter followers.
- Unprotect your tweets. If you wish to reverse the process and make your tweets public again, all you need to do is uncheck the "Protect my Tweets" box.
- Be aware that any protected tweets you published while your account was private will now become public and will be visible to and searchable by anyone.
- You will also need to review any pending follower requests before you switch your account back to public, as they will not be accepted automatically. If you do not do this, those users will need to follow you again.
Request Screening
- Go to your home page.
- Check for new follower requests. If a Twitter user sent you a follower request, a large button on the left sidebar will indicate that you need to review X number of follower requests.
- You will also be sent an email notification to alert you that you have a new follower request.
- Review your follower requests. Click on the new follower request button to review the profiles of your prospective followers. You will have the ability to see each user's Twitter username, profile photo, and a link to their Twitter profile.
- Click on the "Approve" or "Decline" buttons to accept or deny your follower requests. Users that you decline will not be notified. Users that you accept will now be able to read and search for your tweets, but they will be unable to retweet them (as their followers do not have permission to view your tweets.)
Warnings
- Making your Twitter account private is not a retroactive procedure, so any tweets and photos you published prior to protecting your account will still be public. They may not be visible from your Twitter, but anyone who has favorited, retweeted, or linked formerly public Tweets can still access them regardless of whether you have approved them as followers.
- You can delete any tweets that were posted publicly to keep your information private.
- Twitters users who are not following you will not be able to read your replies to their tweets. If you want certain Twitter users to have the ability to read your replies, encourage those users to follow you.
