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Do You Know the X (Twitter) Limits?

Do you know your Twitter Limits?

This article was first published over 10 years ago, but I'm still keeping it current.

See here for a list of updates over the years.


Twitter was rebranded as X by founder Elon Musk back in June 2023. A lot has been changing, and I'm in the process of updating this article with all the new features from X.

X (Twitter) Limits Table

Type Limit Detail
Max Characters per tweet 4,000 (Twitter Blue Subscribers)
280 (Free accounts)
As of March 2023, Twitter users who are enrolled in the Twitter Blue paid subscription can send Tweets with up to 4,000 characters. Free account users have a maximum of 280 characters per Tweet.

Twitter expanded from the original 140 to 280 back in November 2017. And in September 2016, media attachments, links and screen names in replies stopped contributing to the character limit.

Max Characters per direct message 10,000
Tweets 2,400 per day Spread across a 24 period. There are also separate limits per half-hour periods, so you won't be able to tweet all 2,400 in one go. The half-hour limit is unknown for now. Retweets count towards the limit.
Direct Messages 1,000 per day
Changes to email address 4 per hour
Following 1,819  Above 1,819 you can follow this number +10%.
Number of Lists 1,000  You can only have 1,000 lists (this includes ones you have created and ones you follow) Before May 30th 2013 the max number of lists was 20
Number of people in a list 5,000  Before May 30th 2013 the max accounts per list was 500
Number of people you can follow 400 per day (or 1,000 for verified accounts) Standard Twitter accounts can follow up to 400 accounts per day. If your account is verified, you can follow up to 1,000 accounts per day. Thanks to Solomon (in the comments) for the update here.  See more here.
How many people you can unfollow Unknown Twitter doesn't state this, but you are likely to get banned if you unfollow people aggressively. I'd recommend sticking well under 400 unfollows per day.
Max Characters for biography 160
Max length of video uploads 2'20"
(140 seconds)
MP4 video format with H264 format with AAC audio. Max upload of 512MB
Twitter In-Stream Photo Size 1024x512px Max upload size of 5Mb (or 3Mb for animated GIFs). Supports PNG, GIF or JPEG
Twitter Profile Picture Size 400x400px Max upload size of 2Mb. Supports PNG, GIF or JPEG
Twitter Header Image Size 1500x500px Max upload size of 5Mb. Supports PNG or JPEG
Number of Twitter accounts one phone number can be added to 10 See phone FAQs

 

The Follow Limit

You may be new to Twitter, or you may have been using it for a long time and hit the famous "2000" limit. Later Twitter increased this to 5,000.

Most social networks have limits in place for the number of people you can "friend" or "follow". For example, Google+ currently has a limit of 5,000 people you can have in your circles, and you have a limit of 5,000 "friends" on Facebook. This is to stop people, businesses or automated programs from abusing the system.

On Twitter, it used to be possible to bulk follow thousands and thousands of people in the hope that they would follow you back. This caused many Twitter accounts to abuse this and follow tens of thousands of people whilst not creating engaging content and not having many people follow them back.

Not good.

Twitter launched back in March 2006. But it wasn't until July/August 2008 that Twitter started imposing limits on the number of people you could follow.

Twitter was having massive problems with spam (as Twitter co-founder, Biz Stone blogged  at the time). There was a lot of backlash at the time, and a lot of confusion (see this ZDNet post on Twitter Spam efforts goes overboard).

It's commonly assumed that Twitter introduced a 2,000 following limit, meaning that you could only follow up to 2,000 people. However, this isn't strictly true.

The Following Ratio

According to the author, Rob Brown, the magic number is actually 1,819! This means if you have 1,819 followers you can break through the 2,000 limit. Below 1,819 you are capped at following 2,000 people. Above 1,819 you can follow this number +10% (or 182). At 1,819+10% this means you can follow 2,001 people and you have just broken the 2,000 limit- hurray! This (as Rob Brown mentions on

This means if you have 1,819 followers, you can break through the 2,000 limit. Below 1,819 you are capped at following 2,000 people. Above 1,819 you can follow this number +10% (or 182). At 1,819+10% this means you can follow 2,001 people and you have just broken the 2,000 limit- hurray! This means for every 10 people that follow you, you can follow 11.

Update - from October 27, 2015, Twitter announced they were increasing this follow limit from 2,000 to 5,000:

I haven't tested this, but I am fairly sure that the same system will be used for this new limit. To break through the limit you will need to have more than 4545 people following you before you can break through the 5,000 limit. Let me know what you think!

Personally, I think this is a good thing. I'm a bit concerned when I see someone with a large number of people they follow- especially if they don't have engaging content. Twitter is about engagement and networking- it is a social network after all. Having said that, following a large number of people isn't always a bad thing. I love to follow new people, particularly those who Tweet about social media. I manage a large number of followers using Twitter lists- putting the people I find particularly interesting into my "awesome" list. Less regularly, I'll check my main Twitter stream, and perhaps add some cool people to this list.

There is also a limit on how quickly you can follow people. Twitter has imposed a technical limit of following 1000 per day. Thank goodness for that! However, as this is a technical limit, following that amount per day is likely to get you banned due to breaking Twitters Following Rules and best practices (you should read this if you haven't already). And since March 2019, Twitter says normal accounts can't follow more than 400 or 1,000 if your account is verified.

Unfollow Limits

So, how many people can you unfollow? This is more of a tricky question since Twitter doesn't actually say.

Twitter tools such as Social Oomph and Manage Flitter have been asked by Twitter to remove their unfollow tools because this could go against Twitter terms.

The issue is what Twitter calls "aggressive follower churn" i.e. following and unfollowing people in quick succession with the aim of rapidly increasing your followers.

So, is there a number of how many people you can unfollow at one time? Just use your common sense. I've unfollowed over 500 people in one day, but that was a one-off- I wanted to unclutter my feed, but if I unfollowed 500 people each day, I'd likely get banned.

Other Limits

There are other limits, as the Twitter support pages states. You can post up to 2,400 tweets per day (this is spread throughout the day- there are limits per half hour, so you can't just post 2,400 all at once!) You can post up to 250 direct messages per day (thank goodness!) You can change your email up to 4 times per hour (why would you want to do that anyway?)

You can post up to 2,400 tweets per day (this is spread throughout the day- there are limits per half hour, so you can't just post 2,400 all at once!) You can post up to 250 direct messages per day (thank goodness!) You can change your email up to 4 times per hour (why would you want to do that anyway?)

You can post up to 1,000 direct messages per day (thank goodness!) You can change your email up to 4 times per hour (why would you want to do that anyway?)

As of May 30, 2013 you can now follow up to 1,000 lists (up from 20) and each list can include up to 5,000 accounts (up from 500). There are also limits when you use the Twitter API, but that's another topic.

There are also limits when you use the Twitter API, but that's another topic.

Twitter recently added the option of adding a header image. These have a maximum resolution of 1500x500 pixels (with a max upload size of 10Mb. You don't have to upload your image at 1500x500, but it's best to make it close to that to give a crisp and clear image. Certainly, try to make it above 640 pixels in width otherwise it will look pixelated. Finally, your biography can have up to 160 characters.

Summary

So, there you go. Remember, Twitter is a social network- these limits are for your and my protection. Do you think these limits are appropriate, or do you think they should be modified? Let me know in the comments below.

History of updates to this article:

  • June 2023 - Twitter was rebranded as X
  • March 2023 - Twitter Blue subscribers can now send Tweets with up to 4,000 characters.
  • March 2019 - Twitter announces a follow limit of 400 per day or 1,000 if your account is verified.
  • November 2017 - The number of characters in a Tweet has been increased from 140 to 280
  • May 2017 - Updated number of daily direct messages from 250 to 1,000
  • October 2016 - Media attachments, links & screen names in replies no longer count in 140 character limit 
  • October 28, 2015  - Twitter has increased their follow limit from 2,000 to 5,000
  • August 12 2015 - Twitter now allows you to send direct messages with up to 10,000 characters. The limit used to be 140 (the same as standard tweets)
  • May 31 2013 - Twitter updates the number of Twitter lists you can have and the number of people you can follow in each list.
  • January 6 2013 - Added biography character limit & Image sizes
  • January 6 2012 - Added lists and unfollow limits

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Ian Anderson GrayIan is the founder of the Confident Live® Marketing Academy and helps entrepreneurs to level up their impact, authority and profits by using live video confidently. Seriously Social is a blog focussed on live video and social media tools. He’s an international speaker, trainer, teacher and consultant.

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