How to get rid of unwanted notifications in Twitter for Android
I am a very casual Twitter user. I tweet when I’m bored. It is, however, a quick and easy way to keep in touch with people.
That’s why I’m happy just to use the ‘official’ twitter app on my phone. I’ve used others in the past, and they are far better, but I feel guilty taking up the API tokens1. Why should I get access to a better app over someone else, when I barely use the service?
However, these past couple of months I’ve been getting a bit pissed off with it.
I keep getting these notifications about other people’s activities. This morning it was along the lines of ‘@jimmymack followed @ellenpage’. Annoying, when all I want to do is receive messages sent to me.
Going through the settings, I found there’s no easy way to turn this off. There is a way though, it’s just hidden in plain sight:
- Open the app. Tap the three dots on the top right. Tap ‘settings’.
- Tap on your username at the top.
- Tap on ‘notifications’. This is the trick. The check box makes you think you may simply be turning them all off, when instead it opens another, more secretive menu.
- Tick or untick the notifications you want/don’t want.
This is a dick move from Twitter. It’s misleading and annoying. If you use the service a lot, I can’t possibly recommend the official app, when almost every other option is better.