What Is a Direct Message? (DM)

What is a Direct message? 

A Direct message is a personal message sent via Twitter to one of your followers. DMs are different than mentions and @replies.

• In turn, people you follow can send you a direct message.
• You cannot send a direct message to a user who is not following you.

How to send a Direct message via the web:

1. Log in to your Twitter account.
2. Click on the person icon and select Direct messages from the drop down menu. 
3. You'll see a pop up showing your Direct message history. Click the New message button, highlighted below.
4. In the address box, type the name or username of the person you wish to send a message to.
5. Enter your message and click Send message.
   Please note: t.co links, even those shared via DM, are neither private nor public. Anyone with the link will be able to view the content.

Tip: Make sure that user follows you. You can only send a direct message to your followers.

How to send a Direct message from your phone and apps:

In addition to sending Direct messages from the web, you can also send Direct messages from:

• official Twitter apps like Twitter for iPhone, Twitter for Android, or Tweetdeck
  (Click the name of the app you use to learn more.  If you use a third-party app, learn more here.) 
• your phone via SMS

Note: If your message is longer than 140 characters and Twitter receives it intact, we will send your message in two parts for you. But, be aware: if your service provider breaks up long messages into two parts before sending the message to Twitter, we will only see the d+username attached to the first message! The second part will post to the public time line as a regular update because it doesn't have the d+username preceding it.

Receiving Direct messages on your phone:

If your Twitter account is connected to your mobile phone, you can receive Direct messages via text.

• Read this article about setting up your mobile preferences to learn more.
• Haven't added your mobile phone yet? Find more information about adding your mobile phone here.
• Added your mobile phone already? Find out what commands you can use!

Understanding Direct messages:

• Direct messages behave more like Tweets than emails
• The sender or recipient of a DM can delete the message, and it will disappear from both sender and recipient inboxes.

I'm not seeing all of my Direct messages!

• Twitter shows only your 100 most recent messages.
• Remember, your old DMs are not gone, they're just stored in our database. We're working to make more DMs available!

Having Trouble?

Check out our Tweet & DM Troubleshooting section for solutions to commons problems.