Did you know that Twitter sends over 500 million tweets per day? Despite the fact that many of them are happy that you and I may not care, if we are interested in at least 1%, then we have an endless supply of fresh material in our hands! However, how can we view millions of tweets every day? The answer is a bit clich̩ Рvery careful, of course.
Twitter is very generous with the number of search operators it supports. These operators allow us to dig and search for videos, images, retweets, lists, and more.
However, most of us do not use them and only perform simple keyword searches. When you’re looking for something specific, it doesn’t go anywhere.
In this article, let’s take a look at the many different Twitter search operators and learn how to narrow down your search to get exactly the content we’re looking for.
Basic search operators for Twitter
Twitter’s basic search operators
The simplest Twitter search operators are the set you’d expect from most search engines. The ability to exclude certain terms and search for the exact phrase is what we’ve come to expect, and Twitter isn’t fooling us.
“” (quotes)
The quoted search operator limits results to tweets containing the exact phrase. It is case insensitive, and this is the standard behavior for single-word searches.
- Example: “world series”
– (hyphen)
The quoted search operator restricts results to tweets that do not include the term after that. This operator cannot be used by itself and you must quote the term if it uses more than one word.
- Example: baseball -basketball
? (question mark)
The quoted search operator restricts results to tweets containing a question.
- Example: wedding?
OR
The OR search operator restricts results to tweets containing any term. You must enclose the term in quotation marks if it contains more than one word.
- Example: sink OR swim
Interaction Search Operators for Twitter
Twitter interaction-based search operators
As a social networking site that largely revolves around communicating with others, Twitter maintains several search operators that allow us to filter user actions. This includes mentions, replies, and lists.
@ (sign “in”)
The “at” search operator restricts results to tweets that subsequently mention Twitter.
- Example: @jack
in
The “to†search operator restricts results to tweets that were subsequently sent to or in response to a Twitter user.
- Example: to: shaq
with
The “from” search operator restricts results to tweets that are subsequently submitted by the Twitter user.
- Example: from: aoc
list
The list search operator restricts results to tweets that are subsequently submitted by members of the Twitter list. This requires both the Twitter username that owns the list and a shortcut to the URL of the list.
- Example: list: scobleizer / world-news
Filter-Based Search Operators for Twitter
Twitter filter-based search operators
Some of Twitter’s more powerful and specific filtering options revolve around the filter operator. With this operator, we can narrow down the number of tweets by the type of media they contain, when they were tweeted and which sites they link to.
filter: safe
The filter: safe search operator restricts results to tweets that are marked safe and not potentially confidential. This operator cannot be used by itself.
- Example: elephant filter: safe
filter: media
The “filter: media” search operator restricts results to tweets containing an image or video. This operator cannot be used by itself.
- Example: kitten filter: media
filter: retweets
The filter: retweets search operator restricts results to only tweets that are not retweets. This operator cannot be used by itself.
- Example: policy filter: retweets
filter: native_video
The search operator “filter: native_video” restricts results to tweets that contain videos from Amplify, Periscope, or Vine. This operator cannot be used by itself, and you can also filter videos by platform using “filter: periscope” and “filter: wine”.
- Example: meme filter: native_video
filter: images
The filter: images search operator restricts results to tweets containing images. This operator cannot be used on its own and you can only search for self-hosted images using “filter: twimg”.
- Example: dunk filter: images
- Example: france filter: links
- Example: game url: amazon
- Example: Hurricane 2017-09-20
- Example: earthquake before: February 11, 2018
filter: links
The filter: links search operator restricts results to tweets that contain links. This operator cannot be used by itself and will include tweets with comments on a retweet containing a link.
URL: Amazon
The “url” search operator restricts results to tweets that contain a link that includes text after it. This operator cannot be used by itself.
with
The “c” search operator limits results to tweets that were posted after the date following it (year-month-day format). This operator cannot be used by itself.
until
The “before” search operator restricts results to tweets that were posted after the date following it (year-month-day format). This operator cannot be used alone.
A great trick you can use is to combine the hyphen search operator with any of the “filter” operators. This will allow you to perform actions such as searching for tweets that do not contain images or contain potentially sensitive material. Combining more than one operator can really focus your search on the exact results you are looking for.
Get creative with your Twitter searches! Your searches are only limited by your ownership of Twitter and these search operators, and you can view billions of tweets. You will definitely find something that will surprise you.
Want to know how to achieve the same results with Google search? Check out our article on Google Search Operators.
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