How to make your Twitter account private

Twitter is a great way to connect with people and share your thoughts, but sometimes you don't want everyone to see everything you tweet.

There is a significant difference between followers and people who read your content. As a brand, creator or business, you may want to choose to protect some or all of them.

If you're concerned about privacy, personal information, or simply don't want as many people to read your tweets, below are the steps you can need to take to make your Twitter account private.

How to make your Twitter account private

Making your Twitter account private is easier than it seems.

1. Open the Twitter app
2. Tap the menu icon (the three vertical dots on the left side column) to open a drop-down menu of options

3. Select "Settings and Privacy"
4. Go to "Privacy and safety" (3rd option)
5. Go to Audience and tagging (1st option)
6. Check or uncheck "Protect my Tweets"

After making your Twitter account private, only people you approve will be able to follow you, see your tweets, and receive notifications about them.

Note: this won't stop those who already follow you from doing so unless you block them.

What does it mean to make your Twitter account private?

Making your Twitter account private has a few consequences. These are the most relevant:

• Whenever someone who doesn't follow you wants to do it, you'll receive a notification before they can do so. You can then approve or reject their request.

• Your followers won't be able to Retweet your tweets

• Your tweets won't appear on Google or other search engines

• Your old tweets won’t appear on Twitter’s advanced search either

• Your replies to other accounts won't be visible unless they follow you

• All your past tweets will also be private

Making your Twitter account private is a significant decision that will affect your account's performance. Having that said, it's reversible, so you can always undo it.

How to make your Twitter account private on mobile

Making your Twitter account private on the phone is pretty similar to doing it on the website.

The only difference is that to access the "Settings and privacy" section, you need to tap on your profile picture in the top left corner of the Twitter mobile app.

After that, you can follow the same steps that we shared above.

What's the difference between making your account private and blocking someone?

Making your account private means you now have total control over who sees and interacts with your tweets.

On the other side, blocking someone only prevents that one person from seeing and interacting with your tweets. The rest of the world still gets to do so.

If you want to check on the people you have blocked, you need to:

1. Go to the "Settings and Privacy" menu
2. Click on "Privacy and Safety"
3. Click on "Mute and Block"

A menu will appear with four options. Choose the first one and a list of everyone you have blocked will appear.

What's the difference between muting and blocking on Twitter?

In both cases, you won't see their tweets on your feed, but a muted user can see what you post. A muted user can also DM you and interact with your tweets.

A blocked user, on the other side, is not allowed to do any of that.

In a way, muting someone is like "soft" blocking them. It's more helpful to tone out content you don't find interesting but don't want to go over the social hassle of having to unfollow/block someone.

Moving forward

Twitter is a very powerful tool to connect with others, but by being there, we also expose ourselves and our personal information.

So if you are concerned about that, making a private Twitter account could be the solution, even if it comes at the expense of getting less exposure there.