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How to only see Threads from people you follow
In This Article
Threadsisthesocial media app at the moment, offering an alternative to what looks to be the sinking ship over at Twitter. Offering much of the same functionality, the Meta-owned app has seen a huge surge in growth with over 70m users in under a week.
However, there are some big differences betweenThreads and Twitter, not only in terms of functionality but features, with one of the biggest omissions being a ‘following’ timeline to only see content from those that you’re following, rather than an algorithm-based feed displaying threads from people you don’t know.
The issue is that, at the time of writing, there’s no official way to change your timeline preferences. Threads engineers have confirmed on the platform that it will come further down the line, but it’s not available right now.
However, there is one odd workaround that’ll get you something close to your ‘following’ feed on Threads. It shouldn’t work, but for some reason, it does.
The temporary workaround involves changing your notification settings. While that usually wouldn’t have any effect on in-app operation, it seems to change both the notifications and the content in your Threads timeline.
This will likely change in future once the Meta-owned site properly implements a ‘following’ timeline, or it may simply decide to disable this workaround, but it works for now.
What you’ll need:
The Short Version
Step1
Open the Threads app
The first step is to open the Threads app on your iPhone or Android device. It’s likely that you’re already logged in and using the app if you’ve landed on this tutorial, but just in case, make sure you’re logged in too.
Step2
Tap the Profile icon
Once you’re in the Threads app, the next step is to head to your profile page – you can do this by tapping the human silhouette icon in the bottom-right of the screen.
Step3
Tap the Menu icon in the top-right corner
From your profile, you’ll need to access the app’s Settings menu. Unlike many alternatives that use a mechanical cogwheel to display a Settings menu, Threads instead uses an odd two-line icon in the top-right corner next to the Instagram icon. Tap it.
Step4
Tap Notifications
From the Threads Settings menu, tap Notifications.
Step5
Tap Threads and replies
From the Notifications sub-menu, tap Threads and replies.
Step6
Select ‘From people you follow’ under the First Threads category
Scroll to the bottom of the menu and select ‘From people you follow’ under the First Threads sub-category.Though this is primarily for stopping notifications about random Threads, as mentioned above, it also has the knock-on effect of changing your timeline’s preferences – for now, anyway.
Troubleshooting
Some users are reporting that the hack only works for a limited time before being reverted back to the default timeline settings. If this happens to you, simply re-follow the steps above to bring the functionality back.
While Meta engineers have confirmed on the platform that a ‘following’ feed will make an appearance – it’s a feature of Facebook and Instagram, after all – but there’s no word on when that might happen.
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Lewis is the Mobile Editor of Trusted Reviews with plenty of phone experience, from the Nokia 3210 to the iPhone 14 Pro Max. He has been in the tech industry writing about phones, headphones, tablets,…
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
