Before you begin, I think it’s necessary to clarify this, although you probably already deduced this when you see the label Basics in the image above: Let’s talk about Twitter’s limits on using the service’s features, i.e. those that are quantifiable and that have limits. Some fixed and others dynamic, but always assignable to a specific number. In other words, we’re not going to talk about the types of content that violate Twitter’s rules and the like, mainly because there’s no number or formula that determines whether a message is acceptable or not.

No, while this topic is interesting and leads to a debate that could go on for a long time (note to self: I’ll be posting soon to open the debate about those other Twitter limits), this time we’re going to focus on a small but interesting set of numbers that give us will help to better understand the use of this social network and do not be surprised if at some point we see a message telling us that we have exceeded the quota limit (not easy on the eye).

Twitter is a simple social network. Not as much as in its early days, when it seemed like an ode to minimalism, but it’s still reasonably simple, and as a result, Twitter’s list of limits, the measurable ones, is pretty short. And also, the limits are quite flexible, especially for private accounts, so you better not go over them because it can end up being a full-time job.

The first of Twitter’s limits is number of tweets you can send per day: 2,400. I’m sure you’ve done the math in your head at one point and yes, that means you’ll have to post 100 tweets per hour for the whole day before you reach this limit. If there’s so much you need to say, you might be better off resorting to other tools like Future Notes on Twitter… or a Lifetime Blog.

Another of Twitter’s limits that worries the most talkative users is daily direct message limit: 1,000. For users who use Twitter direct messages as an alternative to instant messaging services, this limit may be slightly stricter. Solution? Use instant messaging, that’s what it’s for.

How many accounts can you follow? In this case, we find two Twitter limits, daily and total, but with an important difference between them, since the first is a fixed value, while the second is dynamic. Twitter allows us to follow a maximum of 400 accounts per day, and this is a hard limit, which is further supplemented by rules prohibiting mass viewing. And as for the total number, it starts from 5000 accounts, but in this case it is dynamic and calculated based on the ratios of each account, so don’t be surprised if you see accounts with a much higher follower list.

A lesser known limit is the limit updates per day, i.e. how many times you can reload your timeline to check new messages, list of notifications, etc. In this case, the number we saw earlier is repeated: 2,400, although in this case Twitter splits them into half-hourly intervals. This means you can check for updates a maximum of 50 times every 30 minutes, more than once per minute. If it doesn’t reach this limit, you may need a linden, a trestle, or both.

And the last of Twitter’s limits is perhaps the one that surprises me the most, although I understand that it must be adjusted for mistakes that can be made in the process. And that’s it Twitter allows you to change the email account associated with a Twitter account up to four times per hour. If someone doesn’t hit that limit, I really need to know the story.

More information: Twitter Help Center