You can pin someone else's tweet on Twitter, but only inside a quote
Quote it first: to pin someone else's tweet on Twitter, pin your quote of it, since X only lets you pin posts you published.
X's pin only works on posts you published, so featuring another account's tweet at the top of your profile means making it part of one of yours. A quote does exactly that, and the tweet inside it stays credited to its author.
To pin someone else's tweet, quote it and pin your quote: select the Repost icon under the tweet, choose Repost as Quote, post your comment, then open the quote's three-dot menu on your profile and select Pin to your profile. It works for any public tweet, but tweets from protected accounts, the ones with a lock icon, can't be quoted, so they can't be pinned this way.
Further down: every step in order, what visitors see, when a pinned quote stops showing the tweet, and whether a screenshot would suit you better.
How to pin someone else's tweet on Twitter, from quote to pin
Six steps let you pin someone else's tweet, split between their tweet and your own profile, and they're nearly identical on x.com and in the X app.
Quote the tweet you want visitors to see
- Select the Repost icon under the tweet. On x.com, hover over the tweet first.
- Pick Repost as Quote from the menu that opens.
- Add your comment above the embedded tweet, with one GIF, up to four photos or a video if they help.
- Publish the quote. The embedded tweet doesn't count against your character limit.
Pin your quote to the top of your profile
- Open your profile, find the quote and select the three-dot menu at its top.
- Choose Pin to your profile, then select Pin to confirm.
Doing it in this order matters: the pin works only on posts you authored, and a quote gives you one without changing a word of theirs.
X documents both halves in its help center, the quoting steps and the pinning steps.
Reaching your profile for step 5 differs a little by device, going by X's own instructions for finding your posts.
In the X app, tap your profile icon at the top of the screen (some versions show a navigation menu icon there instead), then tap Profile. On x.com, select Profile in the side menu.
Two kinds of tweets won't go through this. Nobody can quote a protected account's tweets, and you can't quote tweets from an account that has blocked you.
X's blocking page says blocked accounts keep the ability to view public posts but lose likes, replies and reposts, quotes included.
Write the comment visitors will read first
Your comment becomes the first line of your top post, so give it a job. Say why the tweet is there in words a stranger would follow, such as what the author found or why it helped you.
A bare reaction like "So true" tells them nothing.
Above a customer's review of your shop, a line such as "What a regular wrote after her third order" tells visitors what they're looking at before they read a word of the card.
Leave out words like "today" or "this week." A pin can stay up for months, and a time word that made sense on the day you posted reads as stale by the next season.
What visitors see once the quote is pinned
Once you pin someone else's tweet this way, anyone who opens your profile meets your quote before any other post, since X's help calls a pinned post the first one visitors see. Their tweet sits inside your quote as a card with its author's name and handle, under your comment.
X's profile mockups mark it with a small Pinned label under the Posts tab, above everything that follows in date order.
Who sees it depends on your own settings. If your posts are protected, X's repost FAQ says you can still quote, but only the followers you've approved can view the quote, pinned or not.
Nothing in X's pinning instructions sets a time limit. The quote stays at the top until you unpin it or delete it.
When a pinned quote stops showing the tweet
Pinning someone else's tweet through a quote leans on that tweet staying public, and its author can change that at any time. Two cases are worth knowing before you pin.
If the author deletes the tweet, X's page on deleting posts says posts that reposted it with a comment of their own stay up.
The deleted post's contents, though, stop being publicly available. Your pin keeps your comment at the top of your profile, without the tweet it was about.
A plain repost, by contrast, is removed along with the original.
If the author protects their account, X's page on protected posts says their earlier public posts become viewable only by them and their followers. Visitors to your profile who don't follow the author won't see the tweet inside your pin.
A comment that still works alone softens both cases.
Name the author and say what you're pointing to, so the top of your profile makes sense even if the card below it no longer shows their tweet.
Undo your plain retweet before pinning the quote on X
If you reposted the tweet before quoting it, take that repost down. Otherwise the same tweet appears twice on your profile: inside the pinned quote at the top, and again as a repost further down your timeline.
Visitors who scroll past your pin then meet the author's words a second time, which looks like a slip rather than a choice.
Undoing it takes three steps:
- Find the repost on your profile. Its Repost icon shows as highlighted.
- Select that highlighted icon.
- Choose Undo Repost to confirm.
The repost leaves your profile timeline once you confirm, and X's repost FAQ adds that undoing a repost doesn't delete the original, so their tweet and the quote you pinned stay as they are.
X also notes that an undone repost can still appear for a while on mobile devices showing cached timelines, and in cross-posts on third-party sites.
If your profile carries a long trail of reposts you'd rather clear, this walkthrough on how to remove reposts on X covers doing it by hand and in bulk.
Quote or screenshot: which should you pin on X?
To pin someone else's tweet with credit and a way back to the original, pin a quote; pin a screenshot only when you need the tweet frozen exactly as it looked.
Plenty of guides suggest the screenshot route, and it works, since an image inside your own post pins like any other post.
Once they're up, the two behave differently:
| Pinned quote | Pinned screenshot | |
|---|---|---|
| Opens the original tweet | Yes, from the embedded card | No, it's an image |
| Author finds out | Yes, through their notifications | Only if you mention them |
| Author deletes the tweet | Your comment stays, their tweet stops showing | The image keeps showing it |
| Screen readers | Read the embedded text | Need an image description |
| Protected author | Can't be quoted | Spreads what they limited to followers |
Where a pinned screenshot falls short
The author row is the quickest to explain. Quotes land in the author's Notifications tab, per X's repost FAQ, while a screenshot is only a photo in your post, so nothing reaches them unless you add their @username.
The screen reader row is easy to miss. Words inside a screenshot are pixels, so people who use screen readers only get them if you add a description.
X's page on image descriptions shows the +Alt button on each attached photo, with room for up to 1,000 characters.
The protected row deserves a pause too. X's page on protected posts acknowledges that followers may capture images of protected posts and share them.
A screenshot of a protected tweet still puts in front of your whole audience something its author chose to keep for their followers.
The deletion row cuts the other way. A screenshot outlives a deleted tweet, which is exactly when it's worth asking whether the author still wants those words on display.
A quote also leaves visitors a path to the author. Opening the card takes them to the tweet itself, and from there to its author's profile, which a screenshot can't do.
A quote credits the author and links back; a screenshot only freezes the words.
You don't need a paid plan to feature someone's tweet on Twitter
Quoting and pinning come with every X account, so you can pin someone else's tweet today without upgrading anything. X's help pages for both don't mention a subscription, and the X Premium FAQ doesn't list either as a subscriber feature, so the six steps above are all it takes.
The one Premium extra that touches this is editing, and even that has to happen before you pin.
So pick the tweet you'd be glad to have every visitor read first, a customer's kind words or a collaborator's launch, and give it a line in your own voice.
Quote it, pin it, and swap it out whenever something better comes along, or sooner if the author deletes or protects the tweet you featured.
Pinned quote questions on X, from retweets to bookmarks
Why doesn't a plain retweet work instead of a quote?
Because a plain retweet, which X now calls a repost, stays the author's post. X's glossary says reposts always keep the original attribution and describes a pinned post as one of your own, so you can't pin someone else's tweet without the quote step.
Will your followers see the tweet again once it's pinned?
Not because of the pin. Pinning changes your profile, which followers see only when they visit it, and the quote reached their Home timelines once, when you posted it.
To bring it back, repost your own quote, which X's repost help suggests for older posts that are relevant again.
Can you edit your quote after pinning it?
Not while it stays pinned. X Premium subscribers can edit a post or a quote within 1 hour of posting, up to 5 times and from the device they posted from.
X's edit rules list pinned posts among the post types that can't be edited, so make changes before you pin.
How do you unpin the quote later?
Open your profile, select the three-dot menu on the pinned quote, choose Unpin from profile and confirm with Unpin.
The quote stays on your profile as an ordinary post, back in date order with everything else.
What if you only want to save the tweet for yourself?
Bookmark it instead of pinning it. X's page on Bookmarks says they're private and only viewable to you within your X account, so nobody else sees what you've saved.
