How to turn off Twitter's algorithmic feed and see tweets in chronological order

More than a month after it first rolled out as an opt-in program, Twitter’s algorithmic timeline is now supposed to be live for all, as recently reported by Marketing Land. What this means is that some tweets will appear in your timeline out of chronological order.

This is not like Facebook’s algorithmic approach, however, where the social network only shows you content it believes you’re more likely to find engaging. The live tweet stream based on people you follow is still there. It’s just that the first thing you see will be this new summary of “the best tweets first.” The new timeline tweak is mostly a beefier ”while you were away” feature that Twitter introduced in 2015.

It’s an interesting addition that some users will no doubt appreciate. In fact, Twitter told MarketingLand that users opting out of the feature were in the “single digits.”

If you're among the 9 percent or less, however, turning off the timeline change isn’t that hard.

Settings deep dive

Let's start with the web version. Head to Twitter.com and click on your profile picture in the upper right corner, then select Settings from the drop down menu. On the next page, under Content, look for the “Timeline” setting and un-check “Show me the best Tweets first”. Finally, scroll down to the bottom of the page and click Save changes.

On iOS, tap the gear icon and go to Settings > [Account name] > Timeline > Timeline personalization. Toggle off “Show me the best Tweets first.”

Android users should tap the three vertical dots in the upper right hand corner, go to Settings > Timeline and uncheck “Show me the best tweets first.”

Even though the new timeline is supposedly live for all there must be some people who aren’t seeing it—I don’t have it yet, for example. If you don’t see the option to turn off the algorithmic change, check back in a few days.