How to clean up your X following list
The short answer
Work in passes. Clear the accounts that have stopped posting first, since there is no relationship to damage, then the ones you followed for a reason that has passed, and leave judgement calls for last. Protect your mutuals before you start, and stop at 400 actions a day so X does not cut you off halfway.
Step by step
- 1
Protect first.
Turn on Protect mutuals and individually protect anyone you would be annoyed to lose. This is the only irreversible part.
- 2
First pass: inactive for 90 days or more.
Abandoned accounts. Usually the biggest group and nobody misses them.
- 3
Second pass: inactive 60 days and under a few hundred followers.
Follow-back leftovers from years ago.
- 4
Third pass: the ones you followed for a reason that has passed.
Giveaways, conferences, projects you no longer hold. These need looking at, so do them last.
- 5
Stop at 400 for the day.
Follows and unfollows share the same allowance.
- 6
Open your timeline before doing any more.
Two passes usually fix it. If it reads well, stop.
Worth knowing
The number to watch is not how many accounts you follow, it is what share of them posted this month. Three hundred live accounts beat three thousand where most are dormant, and cutting toward that is a different exercise from cutting toward a target number.
Do not try to finish in one sitting. Past the risk of a write block, the last hundred decisions in a long session get far less thought than the first hundred, and those are the ones people regret.
Questions
How many accounts should I follow on X?
There is no right number. The test is whether your timeline is worth opening, which depends on how many of those accounts are active, not on the total.
Will cleaning up my following list improve my reach?
No. X ranks on engagement with your posts, not on your following count. It improves what you read, which tends to improve what you write.
How long does a cleanup take?
Most people clear the dead weight in one or two sessions of a few hundred each. A list of several thousand takes a few days at a safe pace.