How to Use Twitter Saved Searches

The Twitter saved search feature lets you save a query and makes it available to you later from a drop-down menu right from the Twitter search box. The purpose of a Twitter saved search is to let you re-run that search again quickly without having to remember it or type the words into the search box again. At any given time, you can keep up to 25 Twitter saved searches per account.

How to Save a Search on Twitter

Saving a search to run it again quickly is easy on Twitter. Here's how:

First, sign in to Twitter and go to the search box at the top of your homepage.
Next, type your search query in the box and click the search icon or hit your return key.
The search results will appear in the main column on the left. At the top of them on the right will be a More options menu.
Click on the small down arrow to see your choices. One of them is Save this search. Click on that to save your search query. It will appear later in your customized saved searches drop-down menu.

You may want to modify your search before you save it. You can keep it as all options or limit it to Tweets, accounts, photos, videos, or news. You can also limit it to people you know or keep it as "from everyone." You can narrow it geographically to "Near you" or keep it as "From everywhere."

How to Re-Run a Twitter Saved Search

To run any saved search again, click the Searches tab in the menu bar across the top of your homepage. A pulldown menu will appear with all of your saved searches.

Drop down and click on any option and Twitter will run your search again. It's that easy — just one click to re-run saved searches.

Save Time Using Twitter Advanced Search

So, why would anyone bother to save searches when it seems just as easy to type them in again? After all, most query strings aren't that long. One reason to save them is as a reminder. It's handy to remember what you're monitoring if you have your top queries saved in a drop-down list. Think of it as a little to-do list. It's also useful if you run any advanced queries using various filters on Twitter's advanced search page. Those searches take more time to construct, so saving them can be a time saver.

Removing a Twitter Saved Search

When you no longer want a particular query to appear in your drop-down list, just run that search again and look for the "remove saved search" link at the top of the results on the right.

Click that link and the saved search will disappear. Sometimes the search query does not disappear immediately; it can take up to several days for it to disappear from your drop-down list of queries.

Other times, especially if it's an unusual query for which there are no matching tweets or results on Twitter, it may take even longer for your saved Twitter search to disappear. Try deleting it again later if your query does not disappear after a few days.

You may find yourself deleting a Twitter saved search more than you think because the saved search feature does not allow for editing these queries. In order to change the phrasing of your Twitter saved search, you have to delete the saved query and create a new one.

Tips on Crafting a Twitter Saved Search

It's important to keep in mind that keywords, hashtags, and trending topics are fast-moving targets on Twitter. Think of the tweet stream as a rushing river or cacophonous conversation.

What that means for Twitter searching is that you may have to change the exact phrasing of any query to effectively track a particular topic on Twitter. So from time to time, you should run different versions and phrasing of your saved Twitter search to make sure a different phrase doesn't yield better results. A variety of third-party Twitter search tools can help.