How to mute a word or phrase on Twitter

In February 2020, I found that that it was possible not only to mute conversations or other accounts on Twitter, but (courtesy of a tweet by @nonprofWHIT ) that you could also mute a specific word. And you could do it straight from a tweet.

Now, Twitter has announced it is expanding this feature so that when you mute a word or phrase, it will not appear in your Explore tab or Event-based notifications.

Here’s how you go about it.

Mute words or phrases on an iPhone

If you’re using the Twitter app on an iPhone, it’s a quick and easy process:

Long-press on the word you want to mute.
Choose “Mute” from the pop-up menu.
You’ll be sent to a page where you can choose from where you want to mute the word (your timeline or notifications), from whom (anyone or people you don’t follow), and the duration (forever, 24 hours, seven days, or 30 days).

Mute words or phrases on an Android phone

If you’ve got an Android phone, don’t despair. You can also mute words from the Android Twitter app (or, for that matter, from the iOS Twitter app) through the app’s settings. It’s not quite as fast as doing it directly from a tweet, but it’s just as effective.

Select your icon on the upper left corner.
Select “Settings and privacy” > “Privacy and safety” > “Mute and block.”
Tap “Muted words.”
Tap the plus sign and enter the word you want to mute. You then get the same choices as to where, from whom, and duration.

If you no longer want to mute the word or you want to extend the mute time, return to the “Muted words” screen, tap on the word in question, and choose the corresponding option (“Delete word” or “Change mute time”).

Mute words or phrases on your desktop

And finally, if you’re tweeting directly from Twitter’s website, you can mute a word from there as well.

On your desktop, from the left-hand menu, click on “More” > “Settings and privacy” > “Privacy and safety” > “Mute and block.”
In the right column, click on “Muted words.” Click on the plus sign in the upper right corner.
Now you can enter the word or phrase you want to mute. As with the mobile Twitter apps, you can choose whether to mute from your timeline or notifications, from anyone or people you don’t follow, and for how long.

On a desktop, you first find the “Mute and block” section.

When you’ve made all your choices, click on “Save.”
If you want to unmute any words, go back to the “Muted words” column. Click on the red crossed-out volume symbol to the right of the word, and then click “Unmute” on the pop-up window that appears.

It’s simple to go back and unmute a word or phrase.

Some additional notes

Twitter has a number of ways you can mute different types of info in your timeline and notifications. For example:

You can also mute specific mentions of specific accounts (but not mute the account itself) by using the @ in front of the account name.
If you mute a word, you will also mute that word’s hashtag.
Muting is not case-sensitive (“spoilers” and “SPOILERS” will both work), and you can use a phrase with punctuation (“Hey, you!”).
Twitter is expanding the ability to mute words, phrases, etc. to areas other than timelines and notifications. Just yesterday, it announced that blocked or muted text would also no longer appear in Events-based areas:

If / when the ability to mute is extended even further, we’ll add it to this article.

Update January 12th, 2022, 10:00AM ET: This article was originally published on February 19th, 2020, and has been updated to allow for UI changes and new features.