About Image Uploading on Twitter

Uploading and sharing images on Twitter.com is easy! Below you’ll find a brief how-to and some answers to common questions about uploading images on Twitter - right from your Tweet box!

Where do I upload my image?

When you click inside the Tweet box on your homepage or on the New Tweet button, you will see two small icons in the lower left hand corner, one for adding your location (a compass), and one for uploading an image (a camera).

How large can my image be?

• You’re welcome to upload any image that is 3MB or smaller.
• We’ll scale the image for you to fit into the display pane on the right side of your Twitter.com timeline.

What do I do after I hit the “Upload image” camera icon?

• Clicking on the camera icon to upload an image will prompt you to locate the image you want to upload on your computer.
• After you attach the image to your Tweet, your Tweet box should look like the one pictured below, with the thumbnail in the lower left hand corner, and the camera icon highlighted in blue.

• In some browsers, you may see the name of the file instead of the thumbnail:

• Once you’ve added your image you’ll see the character count to the left of the Tweet button update. (A link to the image takes up some characters)
• If you selected the wrong image or no longer wish to share that image, just click the “x” control in the thumbnail or next to the filename to delete the current image.
• Then, simply enter any text you’d like and hit the Tweet button.
• Once you’ve successfully tweeted, click on the Tweet to view the image in the display pane.

What does “powered by Photobucket” mean?

Twitter is launching a native image experience that allows users to upload images directly to Twitter.com from a computer. The images themselves are hosted by Photobucket.

Why can’t I upload images yet?

We’re rolling out this feature on Twitter.com over the course of a few weeks. If you don’t see the camera icon under your Tweet box, bear with us! You’ll get access to image uploads very soon.

Will Twitter continue to support Flickr, Twitpic, yFrog etc?

Yes. You’ll be able to view images hosted on most 3rd party images providers indefinitely.

What’s the deal with protected accounts?

Protected accounts will work the same way with images as they do with text Tweets: you won’t be able to see images from protected accounts unless you’re following the account.

What happens to the Exif data? I heard there are privacy concerns there.

We remove the Exif data on upload. It is not available to any consumers of your image.

Can you comment on an image?

Yes, you can do this by replying to the Tweet containing this image.

How do I delete an image?

You can delete an image by deleting the Tweet containing this image. Once a Tweet is deleted, the image will be be made unavailable. It may still be cached in some browsers and servers, but the image will no longer be available from Twitter.

Are you going to have galleries of my images?

Not at first. But in the coming weeks, we’ll add user media galleries, which will let you see the images a user has shared on Twitter.

When you do have galleries, will they only include images uploaded to Twitter or will other services be included? If so, which ones?

User galleries will include images a user has shared on Twitter, including those uploaded via other services, such as Twitpic, yfrog, and Instagram.

Will all images appear in search?

Unless you have a protected account, there is always a chance that your image will appear in search results.

If I have a protected account, will my images show up in search?

If you have a protected account, your images should never show up in search results.

If I delete a Tweet containing an image, will that image still show up in search?

No, deleted images will not show up in search results.

If I change my account to “protected,” what happens to my images?

Images previously shared by you when your account was public will be replaced by an error page. Your images will still be viewable by your followers. If you don’t want anyone to see your images on Twitter, you should delete the Tweets containing these images.

Is there an image upload API? If yes, can I use it?

There is an image upload API but it is not available to third-party developers yet. Third-party developers will be able to access the image API shortly after we’ve rolled out the feature to all users.