How to Block Phrases on Twitter

Tired of seeing spoilers for your favorite show, endless political chatter, or that one tired meme that just won't go away? You can curate a better social media experience by telling Twitter, now known as X, exactly what you don’t want to see. This guide walks you through the simple process of muting specific words, phrases, hashtags, and even emojis to take back control of your feed.

Why You Should Mute Words and Phrases on Twitter

Creating a less cluttered and more positive timeline is the main reason people mute terms, but the benefits go a bit deeper, whether you're using Twitter for personal enjoyment or brand management. A well-curated mute list acts as your personal content filter, giving you a powerful tool to shape your digital environment.

Avoid Spoilers

Is the finale of a huge series airing tonight but you can't watch it live? Muting keywords related to the show - like character names, show titles, and related hashtags - is the easiest way to keep your timeline spoiler-free until you’re ready to catch up.

Reduce Negativity and Online Noise

Social media can often feel overwhelming. If a particular news story, political debate, or controversial topic is stressing you out, you don't have to delete the app. Instead, you can temporarily mute related terms to give yourself a mental break without completely disconnecting from your online community.

Filter Out Irrelevant Content

Maybe you're just not interested in cryptocurrency, the latest diet craze, or a specific reality TV show everyone seems to be talking about. Muting these topics can clear up your feed, making more room for the content and accounts you actually followed in the first place.

Protect Your Brand’s Timeline and Mentions

For social media managers, muting is an essential brand safety tool. Proactively muting competitors' brand names, common spam phrases, or slurs can help keep your brand’s @mentions tab clean and professional. It stops you from being pulled into irrelevant or negative conversations happening around certain keywords, allowing you to focus on genuine customer engagement.

Muting vs. Blocking: What’s the Difference?

Before we get into the "how-to," it's important to understand the difference between muting and blocking on Twitter. They serve two very different purposes.

• Muting is discreet and content-focused. You can mute specific words, phrases, or accounts. When you mute a word, tweets containing it are hidden from your timeline and most notifications. When you mute an account, you will no longer see their tweets, but they can still see yours, follow you, and message you. They have no idea they've been muted. It’s for content you don’t want to see.
• Blocking is direct and account-focused. When you block an account, that specific user can no longer follow you, see your tweets, tag you in photos, or send you direct messages. It creates a complete barrier between you and another user. It’s for people you don’t want to interact with.

For this guide, we're focusing on muting words and phrases - a far more flexible and subtle tool for timeline curation.

How to Mute Words on the Twitter Website (Desktop)

Filtering your timeline from your desktop browser is straightforward. Just follow these simple steps:

1. Click on More in the left-hand navigation menu.
2. Select Settings and privacy from the pop-up menu.
3. Navigate to the Privacy and safety section.
4. Click on Mute and block.
5. Choose Muted words.
6. Click the plus (+) icon in the top right corner.
7. In the pop-up window, add the word, phrase, hashtag, or username you want to mute. You can add one item at a time.
8. Under Mute from, you can select whether to mute this term from your Home timeline and/or your Notifications. You can choose one or both.
9. Under Duration, choose how long you want to mute the term. You can select Forever, 24 hours, 7 days, or 30 days.
10. Click Save. The term will now appear in your Muted words list.

That's it! Twitter will now start filtering content containing that exact word or phrase based on your settings.

How to Mute Words on the Twitter Mobile App (iOS and Android)

The process on a mobile device is just as simple and offers a convenient shortcut directly from a tweet.

Muting Through Your Settings

1. Tap on your profile picture in the top left corner to open the side menu.
2. Tap Settings & Privacy.
3. Go to Privacy and safety.
4. Tap on Mute and block.
5. Select Muted words.
6. Tap the plus (+) button in the bottom right corner.
7. Enter the term, set your preferences for timeline/notifications and duration, and tap Save.

Muting Directly From a Tweet

If you see a word in a specific tweet that you'd like to mute, there's an even faster way:

1. Find a tweet that contains the word or hashtag you want to hide.
2. Tap the three dots (...) at the top right of that tweet.
3. From the menu, tap Mute [word/hashtag].
4. Twitter will immediately add that term to your muted list with the default settings (forever, from timeline and notifications). You can go into your Muted words settings later to adjust the duration if you like.

Pro Tips for an Effective Mute List

Knowing how to mute is one thing, using it strategically is another. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of this feature.

1. Be Specific with Phrases

Muting a single common word, like "Game," might hide too much content, including tweets about sports games, board games, or video games you care about. Instead, mute a more specific phrase like “Game of Thrones spoiler” or “Big Brother finale” to target the conversation you actually want to avoid.

2. Mute Hashtags and Usernames

The mute feature isn't just for standalone words. It's incredibly effective for hashtags and usernames.

• Hashtags: To avoid a trending topic, add the hashtag itself to your muted words list, like #BachelorNation or #PoliticsToday.
• Usernames: You can even mute an account's handle (e.g., @someaccount) without blocking them. This will hide tweets that mention them, which can be useful if an account is part of a controversy you want to ignore.

3. Cover All Your Bases

Think about all the variations of a term. If you want to avoid spoilers for a show called "Space Explorers," you should mute:

• Space Explorers
• #SpaceExplorers
• SpaceExplorers (without the space or hashtag)
• Common character names (e.g., Captain Eva)
• Common abbreviations or fandom slang (e.g., SE Spoilers)

Remember, Twitter’s mute feature is not case-sensitive, so you don’t need to enter "apple," "Apple," and "APPLE" separately. Muting one will cover them all.

4. Understand the Duration Settings

“Forever” is a powerful setting, but it's not always the best choice. Here’s when to use each option:

• 24 Hours: Perfect for avoiding a live sporting event or a one-day news cycle.
• 7 Days / 30 Days: Great for TV shows where you’re a week or a month behind, or for dampening conference spam or short-term trends.
• Forever: Best for topics you genuinely have no interest in ever seeing, or toxic terms that you want to permanently filter from your experience.

5. Don't Forget Emojis

Yes, you can even mute individual emojis! If a particular emoji is being used in spam or a challenge you find annoying, just add it to your muted list just like you would a word. For example, some brands mute the 🤡 (clown face) emoji to filter out less-than-constructive feedback.

What Happens When a Word is Muted?

Once you mute a word, it’s filtered from several key areas of your Twitter experience:

• Your Home timeline
• Your Notifications tab
• Push notifications
• SMS notifications
• Email notifications

It’s important to note where muting doesn’t apply. Muted words and phrases will still appear in Twitter search results. This is by design, ensuring you can still find content when you’re actively looking for it. Notifications about tweets containing muted words will also still appear from accounts you follow if you've only muted the term from your timeline and not your notifications.

How to Review and Unmute Words

Your interests and priorities change, and so can your mute list. To remove an item, simply navigate back to your Muted words list following the steps above for desktop or mobile. You'll see every term you've muted. To unmute, just click or tap the red speaker icon with a slash through it next to the word you want to bring back. Confirm your choice, and that term will immediately be allowed back into your timeline.

Final Thoughts

Muting words, phrases, and hashtags on Twitter is a remarkably effective way to quiet the noise and tailor your feed to your own interests and well-being. It lets you eliminate spoilers, dodge negativity, and create a social media environment that serves you, not the other way around.

As you refine what you see on social media, you might also be looking for better ways to manage what you post. At Postbase, we work to bring that same sense of calm and control to your content strategy. We built a modern, reliable social media tool for today's creators, focusing on an uncluttered visual calendar for planning, rock-solid scheduling for all platforms (including video-first ones like TikTok and Reels), and a unified inbox that makes engaging with your community simple again. We believe managing your social media shouldn't feel like a chore.