How to Clean Up Who You Follow on X Without Hurting Your Account
After a few years on X, most people will have followed hundreds of accounts that they no longer actually read. Their timeline is full of noise and the following count will often end up being greater than the follower count. A clean up can be very useful, just be careful not to do it too quickly as you can end up getting your account restricted. This guide shows you a safe way to do it.
Short answer: unfollow in small batches over several weeks. Start with the accounts you don’t check that often and which are fairly inactive and off topic. Then work through the ones you only check occasionally and put them into a Private List.
Key takeaways
X’s rules ban the practice of following and unfollowing a very large number of accounts over a short period of time.
A slow manual clean up is safe and takes a few minutes a week.
Lists let you keep track of accounts without having to follow them.
Why on earth would you clean up your following list at all?
A shorter following list is the one that gives you a timeline you actually want to read. It also changes the way your profile appears. People will look at your follower/following numbers and an account that follows thousands and has very few people following back can look rather careless or even a bit automated.
What does X say about mass unfollowing?
X’s rules refer to aggressive follow behaviour as a reason for account suspension. The X Help Centre defines ‘follow churn’ as the practice of following and then unfollowing a large number of accounts in order to artificially inflate your follower count. It also defines indiscriminate following or unfollowing over a short period (particularly via automation) as a violation. The Help Centre states that each account is permitted to follow up to 400 accounts per day and that ratio limits apply once an account has followed 5,000 accounts.
Which accounts should come first?
Start with the accounts that add nothing to your timeline. Accounts that haven’t posted in a year, accounts that have changed their topic to something you’re not interested in, brands you followed for a giveaway, accounts that post so frequently they effectively drown out everything else.
How fast is safe?
X doesn’t publish a figure for unfollows so you need to stay well within normal human behaviour. A few dozen accounts (10-20) unfollowed in a sitting, a few times a week is perfectly normal. Don’t use any tool that will unfollow hundreds of accounts in one go. That’s the exact pattern the rules are talking about and is something that many people will ask for full access to their account.
What can you do instead of unfollowing?
Mute or move the account to a List. Muting will hide the account’s posts from your timeline whilst you still follow it (useful for friends and colleagues). A private List allows you to read the account when you want without following it at all.
How do you keep the list clean up afterwards?
Follow more slowly actually. Before you tap ‘follow’ read a few of the more recent posts and ask yourself whether you actually want them in your timeline every day. Set a reminder to go through the list every three months.
FAQ
Will people know I’ve unfollowed them?
X doesn’t send you a notification when you unfollow someone. They’ll of course be able to see if they check their follower list.
Does unfollowing reduce your reach?
No. Your reach is down to who follows you and how people react to your posts.
Is it safe to use an unfollow app?
Be careful. Apps that automatically unfollow can breach X’s terms and put your account at risk.
