UPDATE 9/18/10 – THIS METHOD NO LONGER WORKS. I am looking for another method and will post about it when I find it. I leave the post up as a curiousity and for the comments, which include a possible solution.
If you accidentally block someone on Twitter, don’t panic. You can undo it, and if it was an accident, you really should!
The easiest way to unblock an account is if you remember the username of the person in question. In that case, type in http://twitter.com/theusername while you’re signed in to Twitter. On the right side of the screen, below the number of tweets, you’ll see this (with the account of follower I blocked):
Click on “unblock” and voila! You’ve unblocked the person. Then, if you meant to follow the person instead of block, don’t forget to do that.
If you don’t remember the name of the person you’ve blocked (and can’t discover it via, say, an email saying they were following you), all is not lost!
Type http://twitter.com/blocks/blocking.xml into your browser. You’ll be asked for your Twitter username and password, then after you’ve entered them, you’ll see a webpage that’s mostly full of programming code. In there, however, is also the list of everyone you’ve blocked.
You will have to scroll through the page, but you’ll likely be able to find the wronged party once you see how the format of the page works. Then go back to the top of this post and go unblock them!
{ 25 comments… read them below or add one }
didnt understnd
THANKS!
Thank you! You know what they say ‘block in haste, repent in leisure’
Thanks for this information. Clear and easy to use and saved me from embarrassment on Twitter! Thanks.
Thanks! It was helpful. I’m lucky I only had to sort through a few lines of code!
When I tried to use the URl it stated: Basic authentication is not supported.
What does that mean?
Hmmm. I’m not sure, as I don’t get that message on this end. It could be something to do with Twitter’s changes to how they use OAuth… but since this is a Twitter.com page, I’m not sure why it wouldn’t still work seamlessly.
If I find anything else out, I’ll let you know.
Hi there,
I went to those URLs and couldn’t get thru as it aint open for public. So how to unblock a person?
Try twitblock.org, if you log in, it will show you how many ppl you are block…you click the #, and you’ll be able to unblock ppl individually.
doesnt work now wont allow
Yes, you (and the above two commenters) are right – now it no longer works for me, either. I will explore the above mentioned twitblock.org and look for other options, too.
http://whoiblock.heroku.com/
You can see the people there, but there is still no automatic way to do it.
The advertised method at http://untweeps.com is not working for me now.
I also found a page with some extended XML code that was said to work. Before I could look further, I lost the page and can’t find it easily again now.
Nope, doesnt work for me: Basic application unsupported error message AFTER I type in USER name and password.
It’s really pathetic that Twitter doesnt have a built-in feature to viewe who you blocked. C’mon Twitter!!
Clarifying, the untweeps.com link I posted never worked for me, either, as far as showing blocks. But the top link I posted did work and still does work. I used it the other day — over two days, actually — to unblock 220 people I accidentally blocked. Here it is again:
http://whoiblock.heroku.com/
It ought to be made to work with checkboxes, etc., though.
N.B.: If you have no blocked users, it throws an error. (So block someone before you try it.) ☺
http://whoiblock.heroku.com/
This link worked great for me.I copied n pasted to wordpad and had a printable list of my 167 blocked persons.
Great thanks to Dallman Ross
I’ve implemented the blocks/blocking Twitter API call at
http://blockedby.me
and display full info on each blocked user with Unblock buttons to undo any mistakes or if you’re feeling forgiving.
Great work, Gerry! Works great.
Greg you are great! Tnx!
Method still working May 2011, use this URL:
http://twitter.com/blocks/blocking (without .xml)
the link does not work
Try the http://blockedby.me link Kennita
As of today you can just go to the users profile page and click “unblock” and then “follow.” The blocked status appears where the follow button should.
What I’d you can only access twitter via an app?
blockedby.me log in, let the app access your acct, and BAM!!!
http://www.twitblock.org
This one definitely works! Thank goodness!
but didnt work