It’s hard to say whether Twitter’s creators could have predicted what would happen. For many people, Twitter is much more than a social media platform. Twitter is used as a way to keep up with current events and news, both globally and in small social circles. The huge amount of content that users are exposed to has created the need for a function to save some of it for future use.
Enter Twitter Bookmarks, a feature that has been testing for a long time and is finally rolling out to mobile devices in 2018. If you’re wondering what Bookmarks can do for you and how to use them on both mobile and desktop, read on. over.
Bookmarks
There were always ways to save tweets for later access, but users needed to find clever ways to avoid doing this publicly. The favorite button (in the shape of a heart) can be used to save tweets by showing them in the “Likes” tab on users’ profiles. Users also resorted to retweets and screenshots to save tweets. In most cases though, these solutions aren’t ideal because they convey implied confirmation of the tweet, which isn’t always what was intended.
An important factor in the decision-making process for Twitter is to maintain a level of simplicity in its products. Ease of use is a key point of difference. So, to meet this popular user demand, Twitter introduced Bookmarks. This allows users to privately archive tweets in their account.
The feature has been very successful on mobile platforms since its launch. Bookmarks are not currently available in the desktop browser version of Twitter, but there is an easy workaround for this, which you’ll read below.
Mobile Bookmarks
Creating a bookmark on a mobile device is very easy. Follow these steps:
- Launch the Twitter app on your device.
- When you’re ready to bookmark a tweet, tap the “Share” icon in the bottom right. This will open a menu.
- Tap the “Tweet to Bookmarks” icon from the menu.
- Your bookmark is now saved. You can access your bookmarks by swiping right on the home screen and tapping the “Bookmarks” option in the Profile menu.
That’s the whole process. This allows you to avoid the general nature of opting for a tweet without having to resort to complex procedures.
Desktop Bookmarks
If the Bookmarks feature on mobile is getting enough attention, it’s very likely to be implemented on the desktop version of the site. But from now on it will take an extra step to access Bookmarks on your desktop.
- Instead of accessing Twitter normally from your browser, you need to access the mobile website at: https://mobile.twitter.com/home. The mobile website is optimized for mobile devices but works just as well on desktop computers.
- When you find a tweet you want to flag, you’ll see an “Outbox” icon at the bottom right. Click this icon to display a pop-up menu.
- Click on “Add Tweets to Bookmarks” from the menu.
- Tap on “Bookmarks” in the menu list to see your bookmarks. You will find it on the left side of the screen on the mobile website.
Whether you save a bookmark on desktop or mobile, it’s saved on all your devices so you don’t have to bookmark the same tweets.
If you want to remove a tweet from your bookmarks, simply reverse the process. Once in the Bookmarks tab, use the same “Share” or “Outbox” icon in a tweet. The options will have changed to include “Remove Tweet from Bookmarks”. Click this to delete the bookmark. If you want to delete all your bookmarks, click or tap on the “Clear All Bookmarks” option by clicking the three vertical dots in the top right.
Best Way to Save
Using Bookmarks not only saves your tweets but also saves you time by avoiding other complicated methods. The process is very similar to mobile and desktop computers, but you will need to use the mobile website on your computer.
It’s hard to gauge how effective the Bookmarks feature is for Twitter, as the company hasn’t shared any data on this yet. Accurate and anecdotal evidence that this feature has been in high demand for a long time shows that users are very happy with it. All in all, this feature probably won’t result in a huge growth in Twitter’s user base, but it is a significant improvement in the quality of the user experience. For now, it is also unclear whether Bookmarks will be integrated into the non-mobile website.
How was your experience using Twitter Bookmarks and what other features would you like to see in the future? Give your opinion in the comments below.
