How to activate the new 280 character tweets on Twitter

As you might have noticed, Twitter is currently testing a new format that doubles the 140 character limit to 280, so you can more freely fit your thoughts into a single tweet. The feature is presently available to select users only, but there is a little trick you can pull off to get the extra space right now.

Bear in mind there are more than one ways to do this – we think this is among the more straightforward and hassle-free approaches; especially for Chrome users. So here is how you do it:

• Load up Tweetdeck at tweetdeck.twitter.com.
• Head to View, hover over the Developer menu, and select Developer Tools.
• Find Sources and click on the arrow below to access Snippets.

• Once you open Snippets, click the ‘New Snippet’ button and copy/paste the following code in the empty window on the right.

• Click the Play button below to run the snippet.
• Boom, now you can tweet with 280 characters.

• Please note that this trick works only in Tweetdeck, which means you will have to use the Tweetdeck client for all of your 280-character tweets.

Update: Developer Juliette Pretot has since tipped us off to an even easier way to activate the 280 character tweets. Find out how here.

There you have it: You can now share your crappy reflections on life in double the space. Much like these people here:

Wait so how do you even know when you can tweet with 280 characters or not this is absolute malarkey and holy shit I think I can actually tweet to 280 wow umm fuck. They gotta change this shit back. Forreal. I got like 70 characters left. Shit. This is awful.20 characters. Fuck.

— You Bum (@brenden_i) September 27, 2017

>tfw 280 char limit woes
you write your tweet and shit and you realize you still have plenty of characters left.

Its like…I have no idea what to fill this void with…Emojis? Nah…

See what I'm talking about…I just don't know how to end this tweet oh wait almost there yes!

— Kaleb (@KalebPrime) September 27, 2017

Look how long my tweets can be, I now have the ability to tweet two hundred and eighty characters. That give me lots of new power to tweet about many things, important and not so much. What would you tweet with 280 characters. God forbid @realDonaldTrump gets this. #280characters

— Dave Rando (@DucksFanDave) September 27, 2017

While this is an interesting development for Twitter – and the strongest indication yet the site is willing to change its foundations – chances are it will take some time before users start settling into the expanded character limit… which means we’re likely to see some mindless rambles like the ones above quite often.

Give it some time, it will pass.

Now lets hope adding the ability to edit tweets is next on the agenda. Everybody seems to want that.