# How to Exclude Words From Twitter Search

To exclude a word from Twitter search, put a minus sign directly before it, with no space: jaguar -car returns posts about jaguars that don't mention cars.

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**7 October 2026** Published

**3 min** Read

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**To exclude a word from Twitter search, put a minus sign directly before it, with no space: `jaguar -car` returns posts about jaguars that don’t mention cars.** The minus works on phrases, hashtags, accounts and filters too, for example `-"for sale"`, `-#ad` and `-filter:retweets`.

Exclusions remove noise faster than any other operator. They are listed with the other word operators in the [Twitter advanced search operators](/blog/twitter-search/advanced-search-operators/) reference. This guide is one of the techniques in [how to search tweets by keyword](/blog/twitter-search/search-tweets-by-keyword/).

## How Do You Exclude a Word on X?

**You exclude a word by typing a minus sign immediately before it in the search bar, or by entering it in the None of these words field of the Advanced search form.** X’s advanced search supports posts excluding specific words ([X Help Center](https://help.x.com/en/using-x/x-advanced-search)). Listed below are the 3 steps.

1.  **Type** your keyword, then the word to remove with a minus sign: `python -snake`.
2.  **Press** Enter.
3.  **Add** more exclusions, each with its own minus sign, until the results are clean.

There must be no space between the minus sign and the word. A hyphen inside a word, as in `state-of-the-art`, is read as a space, not as an exclusion ([twitter-advanced-search reference](https://github.com/igorbrigadir/twitter-advanced-search)).

## What Can You Exclude From Twitter Search?

**You can exclude words, exact phrases, hashtags, accounts, links and most filters.** Listed below are the 8 kinds of exclusion (twitter-advanced-search reference).

| Exclude | Query | Example |
| --- | --- | --- |
| A word | -word | apple -fruit |
| An exact phrase | -"phrase" | laptop -"for sale" |
| A hashtag | -#hashtag | giveaway -#ad |
| An account’s own posts | -from:username | @brand -from:brand |
| Replies | -filter:replies | topic -filter:replies |
| Reposts and quotes | -filter:retweets | topic -filter:retweets |
| Posts with links | -filter:links | topic -filter:links |
| Posts linking to a domain | -url:domain | news -url:example.com |

Two filters can’t be negated: `filter:follows` and `list:` (twitter-advanced-search reference).

## Exclusion Search Examples

**These exclusion searches clean up the topics that attract the most noise.** Replace the words.

| Task | Query |
| --- | --- |
| An ambiguous word | jaguar -car -football |
| Real opinions, no ads | "best headphones" -#ad -#sponsored -giveaway |
| Brand mentions by others | ("brand" OR @brand) -from:brand |
| Original posts only | topic -filter:retweets -filter:replies |
| Discussion without link spam | topic -filter:links |
| Job posts removed | developer -hiring -"we're hiring" -job |

## Why Does an Exclusion Not Work?

**An exclusion fails when there is a space after the minus sign, when the unwanted word is a variant you didn’t exclude, or when the word appears only in the author’s name.** Keyword operators match names and handles as well as post text (twitter-advanced-search reference). Listed below are the 3 fixes.

1.  **Remove** the space: `-car`, not `- car`.
2.  **Exclude** the plural and the variant: `-car -cars`.
3.  **Exclude** the account with `-from:username` when its name is the problem.

## How Many Words Can You Exclude?

**Keep the whole query under about 22 operators, exclusions included; beyond that X stops applying some of them.** For longer exclusion lists, filter the exported results instead, as below.

## How to Filter Out Noise at Scale With apidojo

**apidojo’s [Tweet Scraper V2](https://apify.com/apidojo/tweet-scraper) on Apify accepts the same minus-sign exclusions in `searchTerms`, so the export is already cleaned.** The actor’s documentation shows `-filter:retweets` as a standard example (Apify).

```
{
  "searchTerms": ["\"best headphones\" -#ad -#sponsored -giveaway -filter:retweets"],
  "sort": "Latest"
}
```

It costs $0.40 per 1,000 tweets. See [how to scrape tweets by keyword](/blog/twitter-scraping/scrape-tweets-by-keyword/) and the [apidojo Twitter Scraper](/scrapers/twitter-scraper/).

## The scrapers behind this

-   [Tweet Scraper V2 Tweets from searches, profiles, Lists and URLs; 49–64 tweets/sec; minimum 50 per query $0.40 / 1K tweets](/scrapers/twitter-scraper/)

## Questions people ask

### Can you exclude several words at once?

Yes, put a minus sign before each word: `topic -word1 -word2 -word3`.

### Can you exclude a user from search?

Yes, add `-from:username` to remove that account's posts.

### Can you exclude words on the X app?

Yes, type the minus sign before the word in the app's search bar; check that autocorrect hasn't added a space.

### How do you exclude both replies and reposts?

Add `-filter:replies -filter:retweets` to the query.

## More on keyword search

-   [How to Search Tweets by Keyword on X (2026) How X matches keywords, and the operators for exact phrases, OR, exclusions, hashtags, cashtags, domains and languages.](/blog/twitter-search/search-tweets-by-keyword/)
-   [How to Search Tweets by Exact Phrase on X Put words in quotes to find posts with an exact phrase, use wildcards, combine phrases with OR and fix phrase searches that fail.](/blog/twitter-search/exact-phrase-search/)
-   [How to Search Multiple Keywords on X With OR Use uppercase OR and parentheses to search several keywords, synonyms, hashtags or accounts at once on X, with examples.](/blog/twitter-search/search-multiple-keywords-or/)
-   [How to Search Tweets by Hashtag on X Search any hashtag on X by date, account, language or popularity, find hashtag-only posts and collect hashtag data.](/blog/twitter-search/search-by-hashtag/)
-   [How to Search Tweets by Cashtag ($TSLA, $BTC) Search stock and crypto tickers on X with cashtags, filter out promotional spam and collect ticker posts for analysis.](/blog/twitter-search/search-by-cashtag/)
-   [How to Search Tweets Linking to a Website Use url: to find every post that links to a domain or article, see who shares your content and track competitor links.](/blog/twitter-search/search-by-url-domain/)
-   [How to Search Tweets by Language on X Filter X search by language with lang: codes, use X's special codes for hashtag-only or media-only posts, and search several languages.](/blog/twitter-search/search-by-language/)
-   [Search Tweets by Likes, Reposts and Replies (min\_faves) Use min\_faves:, min\_retweets: and min\_replies: to find tweets above or below any engagement level, with worked examples.](/blog/twitter-search/search-by-engagement/)
-   [How to Find Viral Tweets About Any Topic Find viral tweets on any topic with like floors, repost filters and date windows, plus recipes for videos, threads and links.](/blog/twitter-search/find-viral-tweets/)
-   [Search Only Tweets With Images, Videos or Links The 9 X media filters for images, videos, links and news, how to combine them, and how to remove media from search results.](/blog/twitter-search/media-filters/)

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