Quickstart

Get followers and following lists, and manage follows

This guide walks you through retrieving followers and following lists, and managing follows.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you’ll need:

• A developer account with an approved App
• Your App’s Bearer Token (for lookups)
• User Access Token (for managing follows)

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Get a user’s followers

Retrieve the list of users following a specific user:

cURL

shellscript

curl "https://api.x.com/2/users/2244994945/followers?\
user.fields=username,verified,public_metrics&\
max_results=100" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BEARER_TOKEN"

Response

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "1234567890",
      "name": "Developer",
      "username": "dev_user",
      "verified": false,
      "public_metrics": {
        "followers_count": 500,
        "following_count": 200,
        "tweet_count": 1500
      }
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "result_count": 1,
    "next_token": "abc123"
  }
}

---

Get who a user follows

Retrieve the list of users that a specific user follows:

cURL

shellscript

curl "https://api.x.com/2/users/2244994945/following?\
user.fields=username,verified&\
max_results=100" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BEARER_TOKEN"

---

Follow a user

Follow a user on behalf of the authenticated user:

cURL

shellscript

curl -X POST "https://api.x.com/2/users/123456789/following" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $USER_ACCESS_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"target_user_id": "2244994945"}'

Response

{
  "data": {
    "following": true,
    "pending_follow": false
  }
}

If the target account is protected, pending_follow will be true until the follow request is approved.

---

Unfollow a user

Unfollow a user on behalf of the authenticated user:

cURL

shellscript

curl -X DELETE "https://api.x.com/2/users/123456789/following/2244994945" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $USER_ACCESS_TOKEN"

Response

{
  "data": {
    "following": false
  }
}

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Common parameters

Parameter	Description
max_results	Results per page (1-1000, default 100)
pagination_token	Token for next page
user.fields	Additional user fields
expansions	Related objects to include

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Next steps

User lookup

Look up user profiles

Blocks

Block and unblock users

Mutes

Mute and unmute users

API Reference

Full endpoint documentation