What is a Timeline?

A timeline is a Twitter term used to describe a collected stream of Tweets listed in real-time order. This brief article explains a little more about where you see timelines on your Twitter account.

Your Timeline

When you log in to Twitter, you'll land on the Tweets timeline view of your homepage, as shown in the image below.

• Your home timeline is a long stream showing all Tweets from those you have chosen to follow on Twitter.
• Newest updates are at the top. You can interact with Tweets from within the Tweets timeline by hovering your mouse over an update to reply, retweet, or favorite (shown below).
• Clicking anywhere on a Tweet in your timeline expands the Tweet, so you can see photos, videos, and profile information related to that message.

Note: If you see Tweets in your timeline from users you don't follow, check to see if they're Retweets. It's likely someone you do follow chose to re-broadcast that message because they found it interesting. Retweets do show up in your timeline, unless you have them turned off for a particular user.

Other Timelines

• Timelines can also consist of collected messages from users in lists that you've curated or as search results.
• When you click on a list, you will see an aggregated stream of Tweets (a timeline) posted by the users included in that list.
• Similarly, when you perform a search, you'll see a timeline of messages that all match your search terms.

Having Trouble?

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