How to stop twitter text messages

stop twitter text messagesTwitter text messages are an important part of the Twitter experience, but not all of us have unlimited text messages with our cell phone. So, you ask, “How can I stop twitter text messages from coming to my phone?”

Twitter has a series of Twitter text commands that you can text message to Twitter by sending them to the number 40404 (this is the same number you will send a text message to if you simply want to post an update to your Twitter account; if you haven’t used Twitter before and send a text message to 40404, it will ask you to suggest a Twitter name for your account). Many of these text commands will allow you to stop Twitter text messages from coming to your phone. They include:

STOP or QUIT
You can send either of these terms to Twitter by text message if you like but let me warn you that this is a drastic measure. The one time I used this (and I forget which word I chose) it completely unpaired my device from my Twitter account. When I tried to send an update by text message after using these commands it kept thinking I was a new Twitter user. I had to go to the Twitter website and reconnect my phone with my Twitter account.
OFF
Although it seems simple enough, if you send a text message with “OFF” to Twitter you will stop receiving text message updates from people you have decided to receive device updates from. Unless you send “OFF” to Twitter again, however, you will continue to receive direct messages by text message (including messages from FeedTwit).
OFF username
This text message will stop updates from someone you had previously told Twitter you wanted to get updates. This does not apply to direct messages or any other Twitter account you might follow through text messages.
LEAVE username
According to Twitter’s own documentation, this does the same thing as OFF username. You might think this means you are no longer following them in your Twitter account but really this just tells Twitter you no longer want text message updates from that particular user.


These are all useful things to know if you use Twitter text messages. Another thing you might want to know about is how to receive @ replies from Twitter by text message. When someone replies to you or mentions you and you are only connecting to Twitter through text messages, you won’t know they are talking to or about you until you get to the website- unless you follow FeedTwit. This is a service that sends your Twitter mentions or replies to you as a direct message, so if your phone is set up to receive direct messages from Twitter, you will get them as well. FeedTwit is the best way to keep in touch with your Twitter friends over text messages.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 1st, 2009 at 10:29 pm and is filed under Twitter. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “How to stop twitter text messages”

  1. Dawn Pugh Says:
    August 3rd, 2009 at 11:56 am

    Hi,
    just wanted to say that “TweetDeck” is a brilliant application to use with twitter – A good way of having more control over Direct messages/ replies/ re-tweets etc…
    Thank you
    Regards
    Dawn Pugh

  2. the zim Says:
    August 8th, 2009 at 6:01 pm

    I’ve heard good things about TweetDeck but that requires a data plan on your phone to use.

    FeedTwit gives a similar capability without a data plan.

Leave a Reply