How to See Only the Accounts You Follow on X (and Stay There)

Open X and you land on a timeline. Whether that timeline is the one you wanted depends on which of two tabs is selected. For You is X's recommended stream. Following is the stream of people you chose. If you searched for "twitter following" or "X Following tab", you almost certainly want the second one, and you may have noticed that X has a habit of drifting back to the first.

For You versus Following

X's Help Center page on the timeline describes the two tabs at the top of Home. For You shows posts based on recommendations of accounts you follow or topics you are interested in, and it can include sponsored posts, reposts and events featured at the top. Following shows posts only from the accounts you follow.

That difference matters more than it sounds. On Following, the length of your timeline is bounded by the people you picked. When you have read what they posted, you are done. On For You, the supply is whatever X's ranking thinks will keep you reading, so there is no natural end. Most people who want to use X for the people they care about, and nothing else, want Following.

How to switch to Following

The steps are short and the same in the app and on the website:

1. Open X and go to the Home tab.
2. At the top of the screen, tap or click Following.
3. Leave it selected when you close the app.

The last step is the one that matters, because of how X remembers your choice.

Why X keeps sending you back

X's help page says that when you close X while on the For you or Following tab, you return to whichever timeline you had open last. So the selection is remembered, but only as "the last place you were", not as a preference you set once. There is no switch that says "always start on Following".

That has a few consequences. If you ever tap For You, even out of curiosity, that is where you will land next time. Reports from users also point to resets after app updates, reinstalling the app, or clearing browser data on the website. In each case you open X, and For You is waiting. The habit works against you because the default direction of travel is toward the recommended stream, and one stray tap undoes your setup.

There is a second pull that has nothing to do with tabs. The Explore page and the Trends page present a different kind of recommended content: topics that are spiking right now, events, and "who to follow" suggestions. You can reach all of them from the same bottom bar, and each one is a doorway back into content you did not choose.

Practical ways to deal with this without any extra tools:

• Make Following a ritual. The first tap after opening X is always Following. It takes a second, and after a week it stops needing a decision.
• Do not browse the other tab. If you want to look at For You, look at it from a browser window you close afterwards, not the place you normally start.
• Prune who you follow. Following only works as a calm feed if the accounts in it are ones you want to read. If you follow hundreds of prolific accounts, your Following tab is still a firehose. Unfollow the ones you scroll past.
• Mute what you can. Muting accounts and words removes the posts you keep reading and regretting without unfollowing anyone.
• Remove the app from your home screen. It is easier to stay deliberate when opening X takes a few extra taps.

Lists: a calmer Following

X Lists are curated groups of accounts, and a list shows posts only from the accounts in it. Think of a List as a smaller Following tab that you build. A "friends" list, a "work" list or a "people who write about my job" list gives you a timeline that cannot slide into recommendations, because recommendations are not part of it.

Lists are also a good answer to the follower-count problem. You may follow 800 accounts for historical reasons and care about 40 of them. Put those 40 into a list and open the list when you want to catch up. The other 760 stay followed, and their posts do not take up the room.

The trade-off is that you have to maintain a List by hand, and you lose the sense of what is happening more widely. For most people trying to cut down, that is exactly the trade they are hoping to make.

What Stillfeed does on X

Stillfeed is an iPhone app that opens the real x.com inside its own browser, signed into your account. Your username and password go straight to X, and you do not need a Stillfeed account. On X it does three things:

• It switches your home timeline to Following instead of For You, every time you open it.
• It blocks the Trends page.
• It hides trending topics, event banners and "who to follow" suggestions on Explore.

Because it sets the tab itself, it does not depend on X remembering where you were. Messages and chat still work, as do posting, replying and liking on the X website, profiles and search, and notifications, so you can still look someone up on purpose and see replies and mentions. Stillfeed does not change your account, who you follow or your posts. It hides parts of the page on your phone, and that is all. Open Stillfeed's settings to see which X options are included free and which come with the optional Pro plan.

It only affects the X you open inside Stillfeed. To make the switch last, take the official X app off your home screen and put Stillfeed where it used to be. If you keep the official app, give it a short Screen Time limit; Stillfeed vs Screen Time covers how the two fit together. Stillfeed uses the X website, which can differ a little from the app, so some app-only features may not be there. It is iPhone only.

If you are setting up a foldable, the walkthroughs X on iPhone Duo: keep the big screen on Following, not For You and Setting up X on a new iPhone Duo: a 10-minute checklist cover the same ground for that device. To see what X costs you in hours, try the doomscrolling calculator, and for the pull behind trending feeds read what is doomscrolling.

Common questions

Is there a setting to make X always open on Following?

X's Help Center describes the For You and Following tabs and says the app returns you to the one you had open last. It does not describe a setting that locks Following as the default or removes For You.

Does Following show every post from the people I follow?

It shows posts from the accounts you follow, and not accounts you do not. How those posts are ordered can change, so check the order on your own account. If a strict chronological catch-up matters to you, a List is the more predictable view.

Why do I still see posts from people I do not follow?

You are probably on For You. Check which tab is underlined at the top of Home. Replies and reposts from people you follow can also bring in accounts you did not choose.

Does Stillfeed remove For You from X?

Stillfeed sets your home timeline to Following when you open X inside the app, blocks the Trends page and hides trending topics and suggestions on Explore. It does not change anything on your X account.

Will I still get direct messages?

Yes. Messages and chat keep working in Stillfeed.

Sources

• X Help Center, About your For you timeline on X.
• Stillfeed, Stillfeed on X.

More guides

• X on iPhone Duo: keep the big screen on Following, not For You
• Setting up X on a new iPhone Duo: a 10-minute checklist
• LinkedIn without the feed: use it for messages, jobs and your network
• How to stop doomscrolling: 10 strategies that actually work
• What is doomscrolling, and why is it so hard to stop?