Tweet Alerts: Get Notified When Any X Account Posts

Tweet alerts are how you get notified when someone tweets: a ping the moment a specific X (Twitter) account posts. For one account on your phone, X's bell icon is free and built in. For alerts in Discord, Slack or email, for many accounts at once, or without an X account, you need IFTTT or a monitoring webhook. This guide covers all three.

Last updated November 4, 2026. X's notification steps were re-verified against the X Help Center, and IFTTT's triggers against its X integration page, on that date.

How do you get tweet alerts when an account posts?

Follow the account in the X app, open its profile, tap the bell icon and choose All posts. X then sends a push notification every time that account posts. It is free, but it only works for accounts you follow, only on a device signed in to X, and only as an app notification. When you need alerts somewhere else (Discord, Slack, email, your own app), for more accounts than you want on your phone, or without an X account, use IFTTT or a monitoring webhook instead.

Is there a free way to get Twitter alerts?

Yes: X's post notifications cost nothing. IFTTT is free to start, with more frequent checks on paid plans.

Can I get alerts for an account I don't follow?

Not from X itself. Post notifications are only offered for accounts you follow. A monitoring webhook watches any public account, followed or not.

Can alerts go to Discord, Slack or email?

Not natively. X sends app notifications only. IFTTT or a monitoring webhook can forward each new post to any of them.

How to turn on post notifications on X (the free way)

This is what X's Help Center describes for the iOS and Android apps:

1. Follow the account. The notification icon only appears on profiles you follow.
2. Open its profile and tap the notification icon (the bell next to Follow).
3. Choose All posts, or Only posts with live video, and tap your selection.
4. Check push is on: profile icon, Settings and privacy, Notifications, Preferences, Push notifications, posts. Your phone must also allow notifications from X.

To stop the alerts, tap the highlighted icon on the profile again and select None. The same Push notifications, posts screen lists every account you have post notifications on for.

Twitter alerts compared: bell icon vs IFTTT vs a monitoring webhook

The bell icon is the right answer for most people. The other two exist for the cases it does not cover.

How to get tweet alerts in Discord, Slack or Telegram

A monitoring webhook watches the accounts you register and sends every new post to a URL you choose, as a signed HTTPS POST. With GetXAPI, one call adds a monitor:

curl -X POST https://api.getxapi.com/twitter/monitor/add \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{ "userName": "nasa", "webhook_url": "https://your-endpoint.example.com/hooks/getxapi" }'

The add monitor endpoint creates the webhook and the monitor together and returns a signing secret. Replies are left out unless you set include_replies.

You cannot point the monitor straight at a Discord webhook URL. Discord's webhook API rejects a message unless it carries content, embeds, components, file or poll, and a monitoring payload has none of those. Put one small step in between:

• No code: point the monitor at an n8n Webhook node, then send the post on with n8n's Discord node, a Slack or Telegram node, or an email node.
• A few lines of code: a relay that checks the signature and turns the post into a Discord embed:

import hmac, hashlib, os, re, time, requests
from flask import Flask, request, abort

app = Flask(__name__)
SECRET = os.environ["GETXAPI_WEBHOOK_SECRET"]
DISCORD = os.environ["DISCORD_WEBHOOK_URL"]

@app.post("/hooks/getxapi")
def relay():
    raw = request.get_data()
    m = re.match(r"t=(\d+),v1=([a-f0-9]+)", request.headers.get("X-GetXAPI-Signature", ""))
    if not m or abs(time.time() - int(m.group(1))) > 300:
        abort(401)
    expected = hmac.new(SECRET.encode(), f"{m.group(1)}.".encode() + raw, hashlib.sha256).hexdigest()
    if not hmac.compare_digest(m.group(2), expected):
        abort(401)
    body = request.get_json()
    if body.get("type") != "tweet":  # test deliveries carry no tweet
        return "", 200
    t, a = body["tweet"], body["tweet"]["author"]
    requests.post(DISCORD, json={"embeds": [{
        "author": {"name": f"{a['name']} (@{a['userName']})"},
        "description": t["text"][:4000],
        "url": f"https://x.com/{a['userName']}/status/{t['id']}",
    }]}, timeout=10)
    return "", 200

Check the signature against the raw body, as the webhook delivery docs explain, because re-serialising the JSON changes the bytes. Delivery is at least once, so dedupe on delivery_id if a duplicate alert would matter. For the full product, see the Twitter webhook API page.

Twitter alerts for keywords

The bell icon and account monitoring both follow accounts. For a keyword, a brand name or a hashtag, IFTTT's New tweet from search trigger is the no-code route. With an API, run a query with advanced search operators on a schedule and alert only on post IDs you have not seen.

Which one should you use?

Use the bell icon if you want to know when a handful of accounts you follow post, on your own phone.

Use IFTTT if you want email or phone alerts without code, or a simple keyword search, and do not mind connecting your X account.

Use a monitoring webhook if alerts must land in Discord, Slack or your own app, you watch many accounts, you need a few seconds of latency, or you do not want to depend on a personal X account. GetXAPI plans start at $19 a month for 6 accounts, with the 1-second fast tier from the Growth plan; sign up, pick a monitoring plan, and add your first monitor from the dashboard.