App guide
How to use X without the For You feed
X gives you more first-party control over its home timeline than any other app on this list, and one line in its documentation contradicts what nearly everyone believes about it. Here is what X's own settings do, checked in August 2026, and what changes when the For You timeline is not part of the page at all.
Home is a row of tabs, not one feed
Across the top of Home sit at least two tabs, often more. For you mixes recommended posts from your network with posts from accounts you do not follow. Following is only the accounts you follow, in reverse chronological order. Anything you pin, Lists especially, lands to the right of those two.
Everything else on X, DMs, notifications, search, profiles, bookmarks, sits outside that row and is unaffected by which tab you are on. That is unusual, and it is why X is the app where the built-in settings get closest to solving the problem on their own.
X's own controls
Checked against X's Help Center in August 2026.
The Following tab does stick, and most people do not know
The common complaint is that X throws you back to For you every single time. X's Help Center says otherwise: when you close X on the For you or Following tab, you return to whichever timeline you had open last. That behaviour arrived on the web in early 2023 and carried through to the apps.
If X keeps landing you on For you anyway, the usual causes are a fresh install, a different device, or opening a link that drops you elsewhere in the app first. Before you install anything at all, close X on Following and check tomorrow. For plenty of people that is the entire fix, and we would rather you found that out here than after paying for something.
Pinned Lists
Build a List of the accounts you actually read, then pin it. X describes pinned Lists as appearing to the right of your For you and Following timelines. A pinned List is the closest thing X has to a feed you designed yourself, and it is the most underused feature in the app.
Advanced mute
Mute covers words, phrases, usernames, emoji and hashtags. You choose whether a mute applies to your Home timeline, your notifications, or both, and you choose how long it lasts: forever, 24 hours, 7 days or 30 days. X also says muted words and hashtags are kept out of the recommendations it sends you.
Where it stops: a mute list is a list of things to exclude. For you is a system that generates fresh things to include, so mute is permanently working from behind.
Not interested
On a recommended post you can say you are not interested in the post, or in the topic. X uses that as a signal to show less of the same. Same shape as mute: it shapes the stream rather than closing it.
What snowscroll removes on X
snowscroll opens x.com in a browser on your phone with the For you timeline turned off. You keep Following, the chronological list of accounts you chose, plus DMs, notifications on the site, search, profiles, bookmarks and your Lists.
The difference from simply using the Following tab is that there is no For you tab to drift back to, on a new device or after an update. Nothing is installed into X, your account is untouched, and the switch is reversible the moment you want it back.
Taking out the home timeline entirely is a separate control and part of Pro, which everyone gets for seven days without a card up front.
Honest browser limits
- Push notifications are not supported yet.
- Posting is more basic than in the app, and parts of the site that lean on native features behave differently.
- Pages load more slowly than the app does.
- If you pay for one of X's subscription tiers, features tied to the app may not appear the same way on the site.
We publish everything that is still rough around the edges rather than letting you discover it later.
When X's own settings are enough
This is the app where we most often think you should not need us. If closing X on Following holds, if a pinned List gives you the room you wanted, and if a 30 day mute on three words calms your timeline down, you have solved it with tools you already own. Use those. Come back only if the For you tab keeps pulling you across.
And if X is where your work happens, replies, quote posts, threads, running an account for someone, the app is the better place for that. We would rather say so than sell you something you will uninstall.
Questions
Does X remember that I chose the Following tab?
Yes, according to X's own Help Center: close X on the For you or Following tab and you return to whichever one you had open last. If yours keeps resetting, check whether it is a fresh install or a second device before assuming the setting is broken.
Can muted words remove the For You timeline?
No. Muting excludes specific words, phrases, usernames, emoji and hashtags from your Home timeline or your notifications, for 24 hours, 7 days, 30 days or forever. For you keeps producing new recommendations your mute list has never seen.
Do pinned Lists still work in snowscroll?
Lists work, and they pair well with the For you timeline switched off. Anything on X that leans on native app features may look or behave differently on the site.
Do DMs and notifications still work on X in snowscroll?
DMs, search, profiles, bookmarks and the notifications tab on the site all work. Push notifications to your lock screen do not yet.
Does snowscroll change my X settings?
No. It does not touch your account, your following list, your mutes or your timeline preference. It filters what loads inside its own browser and nothing else.
Keep going
the real science on dopamine and feeds is worth reading if you have only heard the popular version. removing Reels from Instagram is the same approach on a very different feed. the story behind the app explains why we built a browser rather than a blocker. And Android users can leave an email if that is what you are waiting on.