How to Make Twitter Account Private
Protecting your posts hides them from everyone you have not approved. Where the setting is on web, iOS and Android, and what it does not cover.
Web privacy toggle
Set your settings on web: open Settings and privacy > Privacy and safety > Audience and tagging tick Protect your posts. Now that check is all there is to the action. From the moment that tick is (after November 29) applicable to everything your write, every post you publish will be readable by only those whose friendship requests you've accepted. The need to remain in the settings page. The box is still marked, the account statuses are updated on the server at a time. Other browser tabs in the system, where you have logged into the same account, can pick up on unlocked state on their next refresh.
The protect control appears on the same screen as photo tagging options. Tagging can be left enabled or disabled without changing the lock. Anyone can still request to follow. You deal with those request later from followers area. You can exit out of the page once you tick the box. The protection is already enabled, the sign-out is not required.
Phone privacy toggle
On iPhone or Android tap your profile icon, then Settings and privacy, Privacy and safety, Audience and tagging, and turn on Protect your tweets. The device will ask for the password of the account. Enter it and confirm. The lever switches to on and the account is secured. That mirrors the status to the website and every other device logged in within seconds.
It's a stack of screens for mobile path. You are on Audience and tagging right after the switching up. Tap back to the main settings list or close out of that app. No restart is required. Compose screens now consider new posts as having a finite list of approved followers. Just before you go ahead and write your next post, the change is live.
Password confirmation step
When the protect switch is on, X requests the current password (especially on mobile) Enter the password in prompt. This is mainly a check that prevents having an open session on a shared device from changing the privacy state of the other users by itself. If the password is equal, the setting saves. If an incorrect password is entered, protection will be left off and an error that can be retried once will be shown.
The setting that you save resides stored on the X servers. It updates every client which already has a valid login token, with no need for any new password input. You confirm once. Subsequent devices just take the protected state when they load account preferences next.
Approved audience only
Only people your following are able to see the posts. A logged-out visitor notices that the posts are protected. A signed-in person that doesn't follow you sees the same notice, along with a follow button. They will now be unable to open the timeline, media linked in posts, or read replies you left on other accounts. The profile header and bio remain displayed. The timeline itself does not.
This links the new attempt to follow into a requests list. From that followers tab or from the notifications, ensure you open that list. Accept or decline each one. From that moment, an accepted account receives timeline access. A declined account stays outside. By then, you can kick out an accepted follower and they lose the posts once again.
Repost and discovery blocks
Protected accounts: Posts set as Protected cannot be reposted into any public timeline. Only Followers are allowed to re-post the control, and even then, those posts can't break out of the circle. The posts also unsubscribe from the public search. Search for any wording which is seen only in one of your encrypted posts yields nothing if you are not on their approved list. When a non-follower lands on direct link to post, instead of actual text it shows protected notice.
The posts that use the hashtags don't appear on the public hashtag pages anymore. Quote posts are prohibited under the same clauses as reposts. That post only lives anywhere to the extent an authorized follower translates it or takes a screen shot of the text. X does not further disseminate it.
Reply visibility rules
When you post a reply on a public account, only your followers that you've approved can see it. Unless they are already following you, the original poster does not see that reply. Everyone else reading the thread also fails to see it. Thus, the public back-and-forth stops for any person not in your list. And for the other person to read the reply they have to follow you or you send them a DM copy paste of this text.
You get notifications for replies public accounts send you and can read them. The space of your own answers remains within the safe ensemble. The vast majority of people plug into this contraction of conversation after they have already locked the account and tried to continue talking in public threads.
Persistent public profile data
We display the display name, handle, bio, avatar, header image and follower and following counts. Because this is easier for any one to load the profile and read that fields. The bio itself should also retain public lines for the location and website. Protection does not hide that the account is present and it doesn't hide the follower number.
Even a search for the handle returns the profile. Your profile may show up in suggestions, and in lists made by other users, but the posts themselves remain hidden from those lists. Changes to the avatar or bio update the public profile in real time! Those fields are outside the protect control And so do direct messages. Inbox rules do not hold beyond what you've established on the Direct Messages screen.
Prior follower access
Old posts and new posts will be visible to all the those accounts who followed you already. The lock does not invalidate the current follower list. Anyone you followed years back retains full timeline privileges until evicted one-by-one off the followers page.
Any copies created when the account was public remain intact. Screenshots, third-party archives and old quote posts are all still around on their respective hoarders. When you turn on protection, X does not send removal requests. Deleting the posts @UCDavis had made in the first place is the only way that mitigates that longer term exposure.
Post history cleanup
In cases where the lock is due to specific older posts, protection leaves those posts available to read by all current followers. Remove any posts that are no longer to be attached to the account We pull the X archive, then taking us year-by-year to show you precisely what time-lines yet still exist in public view for who you had previously approved of.
TweetSweep deletes by date range. Choose your era you want to eliminate by selecting the start and end dates and run the pass. Deleting those posts then enables the protect setting, keeping every post you write afterwards within that vetted circle. So, the date-range deletion plus the currently live lock is what really retires that old material and also limits adding new material.