# How to Follow Topics on Twitter > Topics are a separate feed from your follows. How to add one, how to stop one, and how they change what you see. - Source: https://tweetsweep.com/blog/how-to-follow-topics-on-twitter - Published: 2024-08-18 - Updated: 2026-08-16 - Reading time: 5 min --- ## Sidebar and profile menu Open the left sidebar on the web, and see Topics in your profile menu. The Topics screen contains entries for news, sports, technology, and entertainment (topics menu). Explore those categories, pick a topic, and hit Follow on anything applicable. Recently, your Home timeline suddenly gets filled with posts about him from accounts you have never even heard of, after all those years of following a topic. And therein lies the rub: you receive a topic, not an individual; and freshness instead of waiting for your followers to aggregate into something valuable. Mobile, tap your profile picture and then Topics. The same category browser appears. Same process for follow: tap open a topic, and tap Follow. You can follow multiple topics in one go. Each one inserts similar posts into Home independently. With the right choice of two or three topics, it arrives much more quickly than hunting accounts one by one — so if you just created the account or erased your old timeline. Stick to topics where you really want to read, because each follow is an open order for more of the same. ## Timeline topic labels You may also follow a topic without opening Topics screen. If a post appears in Home with one of the topic labels above the account name, tap that label. The topic page is loaded up with in the main landing, by way of a Follow control. If you tap it from then on and you are following that subject. This is useful when your algorithm has already shown you something good, and you would like more of that. That label is X — which topic bucket that post sat in, so following it is a direct vote for that bucket. The point is that not every post has a topic tag. When X classifies the post under a topic that it already manages, labels will appear. If you never see labels, open Topics from the profile menu and follow there instead. Most people get label happy after a few topics, as it puts those subjects in the feed for a timeline that is now intertwined with everything their following. treat each label as a shortcut not the only door You can follow the same topic from label or Master and receive additional posts on related in Home. ## Unfollow and not interested And any topic you follow can be unfollowed from that same Topics screen where you originally followed it. In the sidebar or in your profile picture, go Open Topics, locate it within Following and tap Following to disable the feature. The topic is no longer a pond of posts Unfollow is the clean cut when you realized the entire subject was a swing and a miss; do it when your feed begins to feel not quite right, for followed topic means spree posts until you axe them. One unfollow stops the stream. A Not interested option is also available on specific topics as they come up. If you see a Topic suggestion or post that has been labeled as a subject you do not want to be shown, select Not interested. Now, that does not require you to have ever followed a topic first but it tells X not to recommend further on that topic. Use Not interested for suggestions and unfollow for the things that you have already followed. They are different controls on separate screens, but both of them reduce the frequency with which that subject appears. You can follow this process after a week in your Topics screen and understand what is still there under Following. ## Muted words and topics If a topic keeps coming up and you DO NOT want to see it, muting is the better option. Go to Settings → Privacy and safety → Mute and block → Muted words and topics. From there, you can completely mute a topic. Mute is more powerful than Not interested — it's more of a block of that topic showing up, and not just an indication. When unfollow and Not interested aren't doing the job, and that same content still shows up in Home or at least search-next-door with those related suggestions: use it. Explicitly state the name of that topic to confirm mute. Like muted words, topics are placed into a section within the Mute and block area where you can check on them later and unmute if necessary. No unfollowing accounts; nothing you posted will vanish Muting does. It simply prevents that topic from being served to you. If the assignment is political in nature or something that may be timely and you need it to go away for a month, mute it while you can so once the hubbub calms down unmute. Best Keep the mute list short enough that you can remember every reason for muting someone (and drop it later). ## Topics lists and hashtags Topics are selected by X and monitor a topic across accounts you might not know about. You create, who you follow (in lists). Lists provide a sorted, feed of only those accounts in chronological order and algorithm-free time, which tends to be the more preferred tool if you already know exactly who you want to read. Use a topic when the subject is stronger than the author. Use a list when the authors matter more than what they wrote about. They can run together. Home mixes topics. List gets its own tab next to Home. Hashtags are just a search. Real-time news is live events, breaking new and conference chatter; otherwise they are mostly dead. Following a hashtag ≠ following a topic: a hashtag only matches the exact string people typed whilst, a topic match posts X tagged on that subject without words ever appearing. We don't have a standing feed with a hashtag. Search it, when something is currently happening then gone. We train on data till Oct 2023; if you wish that subject tomorrow, please follow the topic, No question. ## Account subject inference Termination these topics however also worked the other way around. In plain words, X read what you post and understands your account identity based on its reading and this determines who will get recommended posts from your account. A relevant audience is matched with an account that has a clear subject area. Noise from an account that posted about five unrelated hobbies for a decade. If your history is a muddied jumble of topics that you no longer write about, now the predicted topic makes no sense and recommendations go towards the wrong people. Tighten the archive from now on to match what you post. Since TweetSweep allows you to delete by keyword, that old obsession can be wiped without ruining the rest. Look search the word or piece that has defined the period of the previous issue, select some posts in line with that and remove slice With the posts that you still write about. Without the old topic, X has a clearer signal on who should see you, and the topics you follow on reading side match more naturally with topics published. Do the keyword pass once. Then scroll and follow those subjects that suite the remaining archive.