140 character limit taken off Direct Messages

11:36 - 13 August 2015

DMs via SMS will still have the 140 character limit

While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about memes, news, movements, and events.

If you’ve checked your Direct Messages today, you may have noticed that something’s missing: the 140 characters limit. You can now chat on (and on) in a single Direct Message, and likely still have some characters left over.

While Twitter is largely a public experience, Direct Messages let you have private conversations about the memes, news, movements, and events that unfold on Twitter.

That’s why the company has made a number of changes to Direct Messages over the last few months. Today’s change is aimed towards making the private side of Twitter even more powerful and fun.

You may be wondering what this means for the public side of Twitter. In one word, nothing. Tweets will continue to be the 140 characters they are, supporting photos, videos, links, Vines, gifs, and emoji.

Twitter has started rolling out this change today across Android and iOS apps, on twitter.com, TweetDeck, and Twitter for Mac. It will continue to roll out worldwide over the next few weeks.

If you can’t wait to try out longer Direct Messages, be sure you’re using the latest versions of our apps so you get the update right away.

However, sending and receiving Direct Messages via SMS will still be limited.