Have you ever seen an annoying tweet in your feed and wished there was a way to shut that person up without having to take the drastic measure of completely unfollowing them? Now there's a way!
Twitter on Monday announced it is rolling out an oft-requested "mute" option for the Web and for its iOS and Android mobile apps. The new feature will be making its way to all Twitter users over the coming weeks.
"In the same way you can turn on device notifications so you never miss a Tweet from your favorite users, you can now mute users you'd like to hear from less," Twitter said on its official blog. "Muting a user on Twitter means their Tweets and Retweets will no longer be visible in your home timeline, and you will no longer receive push or SMS notifications from that user."
Muting lets you have all the benefits of following someone without actually having to see what they say. The muted user will, for instance, still be able to favorite, reply to, and retweet your tweets, you just won't see any of that activity in your own timeline. You won't be completely left out in the cold, however, as any @ replies and @ mentions from muted users will still show up in your Notifications tab. Muted users you follow will also still be able to send you direct messages.
There's two ways to mute someone—from a tweet or on their profile page. From a tweet, tap More at the bottom and click Mute. If you're on the person's profile, you can click the gear icon, which will bring up a drop-down menu where you'll see the Mute option. When you mute someone, all their old tweets will still be displayed in your feed, but you'll be blissfully ignorant about anything they post from then on.
Rest assured that the person will not know that you have muted them, and you'll be able to unmute anyone who returns to your good graces at any time.
Word that Twitter was testing a mute feature first spread earlier this month.
Are you happy about this new option? Tell us in the comments below.