You’re not alone if you’re having trouble accessing Twitter right now. The social media platform has been throwing out error messages for users all afternoon. As a result, Twitter users are trying to understand the daily message and follow limits set by the social media headquarters.
Many of us who use Twitter daily will never come close to reaching the limits put in place by Twitter, but some accounts might for several reasons. Be it a push for follows gone wrong or someone trying to spread a message to a specific but significant group of people, the limits are there for a reason. So where exactly does Twitter stand on daily limits for messaging accounts, and how many people can you follow? Let’s take a look.
Does Twitter limit how many people you can follow?
Twitter’s help center provides information on following limits, ratios, and what they have to do with one another.
Twitter does not limit the number of people you can follow, per se, but they have a set of formulas for how many people you can begin following per day and what happens when you begin following thousands of accounts. To help set the pace for how quickly you start following accounts, Twitter has established the following guideline:
Every Twitter account is able to follow up to 400 accounts per day.
Even though they do not limit the number of accounts you follow, there are ways your following-to-followers ratio can put a temporary cap on your ability to continue following a large number of accounts.
Every Twitter account can follow up to 5,000 accounts. Once you reach that number, you may need to wait until your account has more followers before you can follow additional accounts.
Twitter states that the formula is different for each account, and a system calculates it based on each user ratio. Twitter help notes that you may receive several messages if you continue trying to follow accounts past the daily and ratio limits. If you see a pop-up that reads: “You are unable to follow more people at this time,” the following reasons may be behind it.
You may have reached the daily follow limit, which means you can begin following more accounts after a day. If you happen to follow too many accounts in quick succession, you can try again in about an hour, as Twitter help explains. If you’ve hit a follow limit due to your account ratio, one way you can fix that if you can’t gain new followers is by unfollowing a few of the accounts you already follow.
Does Twitter have a limit on messages you can send per day?
Twitter help explains that there is a number of messages each account is allowed to send per day. When you send private messages to an account, these are much like a text message or an e-mail; they are not made public. So what is the set number of messages that can be sent daily?
The limit is 500 messages sent per day.
Messages can’t be sent to every account on Twitter; some celebrities and businesses have messages turned off from accounts they do not follow. If you cannot send a message to a specific account, you still might be able to Tweet them, and if you don’t want messages from accounts you do not follow, you can turn that option off in your own settings menu.
Is there a limit of Tweets you can send per day?
Twitter does have a set number of Tweets that each account can send per day, and there are even limits on how many can be sent out per hour. These limits help to stop spam tweeting and retweeting, which makes Twitter a more pleasant social media experience for everyone.
2,400 per day. The daily update limit is further broken down into smaller limits for semi-hourly intervals. Retweets are counted as Tweets.
Don’t fret, if you’ve got a lot to say; your limit is reset at the end of each day, and unless you’re actively taking part in behavior that Twitter deems abusive in terms of following and tweeting, you should be okay. Twitter does take note, however, if you seem to be spamming in Tweets or taking part in ‘follow churn’ to try to get the most followers for your account.
If you need more help on Twitter limits, proper social media behaviors, or other questions on how to get the most out of your Twitter experience, don’t forget to check out their help section.