How to Change Your Twitter Settings

Twitter is one of the larger social media platforms, which means there are a lot of settings to deal with. From privacy to ad preferences, it’s easy to become lost once you click on the gear icon. We’re going to discuss how to change your Twitter settings, whether you’re interested in wiping out data or adding 2FA authentication.

What is Twitter?

If you’re wondering what Twitter is, the easy answer is that it’s a social media site. It’s similar to Facebook in the sense that it allows you to connect with people around the world, but that’s where the similarities end.

Facebook is geared towards sharing content — whether it’s breaking news, a funny GIF, or something an influencer wants to market to their audience. Each post or tweet is limited to 280 characters, which results in quick messages that are easy to read and digest.

While the site relies on hashtags and mentions, followers are an important part of the platform. It’s also an area where you can run into trouble when you share your thoughts — depending on who’s listening. That’s one reason Twitter settings are important for everyone, including influencers and average users.

How to Change Your Twitter Settings

Before you can change your Twitter settings, you’ll need to know where to find them. The location varies somewhat depending on whether you’re using the Twitter app or web portal. Web users simply need to head to Twitter, log in, and click on the More button to bring up a sub-menu. From a mobile device, you need to tap your Profile icon to find the menu.

With the sub-menu active, choose Settings and Support and then Settings and Privacy to open up the Twitter settings menu. Once you have access to this menu, you’ll see a number of new areas to explore. These are the same on a smartphone or on the web, although some of the settings within these menus will differ.

Account Settings

The first set of settings deals with your account information on Twitter. This is where you’ll go to change your password and other key information, and you may be required to enter your password to access this menu.

To change your Twitter handle, go to the username area in Account Information. You can change it as many times as you like as long as it meets Twitter’s criteria. Other fields you can edit include your phone number, email address, country, and account automation. The web version of Twitter also shows the date your account was created, along with your birth date, age, gender, and language.

Changing your password is something else you can do from this menu or you can download an archive of your data. This feature allows users to request their “data history” from their Twitter accounts. It’s useful if you’ve been on the platform for a while and want to see what type of information Twitter has logged.

The TweetDeck Teams feature is another range of settings seasoned users will enjoy, while the Deactivate Your Account area allows you to start the process of deleting your account. You can read more about how to permanently delete your Twitter account here.

Security and Account Access

In the Security and Account Access section, users can manage their connected accounts or set up some additional security for their Twitter accounts. Additional password protection is a handy feature. It adds extra security to your account, just like 2FA. Two-factor authentication is arguably the best way to secure an account, even if it can occasionally cause problems.  

When you want to see what accounts you’ve used to log in to Twitter or you want to manage them, look in the Connected Accounts section. You can disconnect a login method from here, while the Apps and Sessions section provides a different type of overview. From here, you can see things like apps connected to your account or active sessions. If you need help managing connected accounts or setting up additional security on Twitter, this guide on Security and Account Access Settings will help.

Privacy and Safety Settings on Twitter

Twitter is made for sharing, and the area of Twitter settings that deals with that is called Privacy and Safety. It’s also an area that can be a lot to take in if you’re new to the platform. If you want to mute an account or manage what information goes out with your tweets, this is where you’ll change your Twitter settings.

You can’t block people directly from here, but you can manage accounts, notifications, and words you’ve muted or blocked. When you want to change the topics or interests Twitter displays in your feed, you can make adjustments from the Content You See section. That includes the ability to remove blocked accounts from search results or hide any content you’ve deemed sensitive.

Users who only want to share their thoughts with their followers will appreciate the ability to protect their tweets. Photo tagging lets you either adjust who can tag you in photos or turn off tagging altogether. Need to adjust your DM settings? That’s also an option, along with turning on read receipts.

The other half of this section deals with data sharing and personalization. It’s where you can adjust personalized ad settings and turn off the platform’s ability to share your data with business partners. It’s an area of interest if you’re concerned about your privacy or spam in your feed, and it’s simple to manage with a few clicks.

While most of these settings are the same on the Twitter app and the web, there are a few extra settings on mobiles. If you want to take a deeper dive into these settings, check out our guide to Twitter Privacy and Safety settings.

Twitter Notification Settings

As a platform that allows users to receive and send out information in seconds, notifications are an important part of the Twitter experience. It’s also an area where there aren’t many settings to deal with if you’re using Twitter from a browser.

Notification filters let you choose the type of notifications you want to receive. The quality filter can help tone things down, but you can turn Twitter notifications off for people with new accounts or unconfirmed phone numbers as well. On the app, this is where you can add “muted” words, which is handy when hot topics hit the platform you don’t want to hear about.

You can set up a variety of toggles for SMS notifications on a smartphone or tablet. A few options include retweets, mentions, likes, and news from Twitter. There is also a toggle to turn on an unread badge count, while the web version only has sections for push and email notifications under preferences. Our guide on Twitter notification settings takes a more in-depth look at this area.

Accessibility, Display, and Language Settings

When you first use Twitter, it’s localized based on your region. Users who want to change their language or turn on bilingual mode can do so from the Language settings on Twitter. Options here include display language, which affects headlines and additional languages. Setting this option up opens the door to content on Twitter in other languages.

App users can turn autoplay off under Accessibility settings or set media descriptions. Media and Sound toggles are available through the app, and there is a setting to use an external browser for web links.  If you’re using Twitter from the web, you can also set font size, text color, and background color from this area. You can read more about Accessibility, Display, and Language settings here.

The Wrap-Up

Twitter can provide users with an endless stream of information and plenty of entertainment when properly set up. Knowing how to change your Twitter settings is half the battle, and we hope our guide has helped you master that. If you’re curious about how to save content from the platform, including GIFs, we have that covered as well.