Twitter is one of the most unique social networking platforms; it is not just a social network, it has elements of a blog as well, and there are always some news you can find on it. Whenever you’re free, Twitter is one of the best apps to explore and spend some time on. There is so much information that you can easily fall into a black hole of memes, popular posts and jokes. It is also a great platform for promoting your work, your art and even sharing your thoughts to figure them out in your own head. Although, learning everything there is about Twitter is hard and takes time, once you do know all there is to know, you can have a lot of fun. It will also allow you to join some great communities and interact with a host of people from around the world. And one of the best ways to do that is through a Twitter Desktop Client.
Using Twitter through a third-party client has gotten a bit difficult over the years since the features have become limited. However, these are still a great way to use Twitter whenever you want to. Most Twitter users prefer to use the basic Twitter website when they want to browse it through their computer, but many don’t know that there are a lot of great applications and clients they can use instead. There are some great alternatives to the website on both Mac and Windows, which have a lot of different features, amazing designs and some settings that you won’t find in the regular website.
Now, no application can replace the original ones on your Android or iOS devices, nor the actual website, but these can be good alternatives whenever you want to quickly browse through Twitter on your computer or laptop. So, if you want a Twitter Desktop Client for yourself, read through the article to see which one is the perfect fit for you.
Tweetium – Twitter Desktop Client for Windows 8.1 and 10
Windows 10 already comes with a Twitter application, supplied by Twitter itself, which follows the design principles of Microsoft and looks pretty great. However, the best Twitter desktop client for Windows still remains Tweetium. It is a third-party application that you can easily get from the Windows Store. Although you have to pay $2.99 for the app, you can first check it out with a free trial instead of paying the money right off the bat. If you like it, which you are most certainly going to, you can then pay the money and buy it. As with any other third-party application, Tweetium has some limitations compared to the official applications or the website, but overall it is still worth checking out and keeping.
Let’s start by discussing the design of Tweetium, which has been designed while keeping in mind the general design of Windows 10. This means that there’s a lot of blue headers that are big and bold, along with a lot white space. The content is separated from each other with faint lines and there is a windowed look to everything. All your new content opens in new windows so you can keep a tab on everything at once, with multi-thread support available.
The application also incorporates a tile-based designed which has been popular with Windows over the years, especially the last two versions. This allows the application to gel well with the Windows operating system. Furthermore, the animations and videos you watch through the application have short loading times and are fluid. There are a lot of great options to customize your Twitter experience through Tweetium. You can completely set the appearance of your app according to your preference. There are a lot of color options, especially solid colors that you can choose from. The fluid animations make transitions between tweets smooth and appealing. There are also dark modes available if you want to make use of them.
Next, we can discuss the features you get with Tweetium, which are a lot. You do not have to refresh your feeds to get new tweets because auto-loading is one of the features available; new tweets appear in your timeline as they come in. There is also the option of live tiles, which means you can keep a check on your account without having the application opened at all times. It also means that you can look through your mentions and your DMs without opening the application. Compared to the standard image viewer in the Twitter’s web client, the image viewer available through Tweetium is much better and gives you full-size images. The video player embedded within the application is also worth checking out.
One thing that could frustrate you is the fact that a lot of the amazing features are only available if you buy the pro version of Tweetium, which costs $7.99. These features include push notifications, as well as support for follows, likes and notifications. It also give you multi-account support and an integrated reader that makes reading articles better than ever. All these features make the pro version worth the extra money, but even the basic version makes it one of the best applications for using Twitter on Windows.
TweetBot – Twitter Desktop Client for MacOS
One of the best desktop clients you’ll find for Twitter on MacOS is TweetBot. The app is slightly more expensive than the one we discussed for Windows; where that one was for $2.99, TweetBot can be bought for $9.99. You may be wondering whether the application is worth that kind of money, but rest assured that it is. Its functionality, design and multiple account support make it worth it, and you can tweak it to be as active or inactive on your desktop as you like. How? There are different settings for full-screen, half-screen and background modes. You can see the icon for TweetBot at the top of your screen, in the Mac’s menu bar. This means that the app can stay hidden in the background if you want, or stay active on top if you prefer.
The design of Tweetbot is something worth checking out – it makes use of the general design of Twitter, with a lot of blues, whites, round icons and a timeline that is in reverse-chronological order. This is meshed well with the MacOS design to provide you with an excellent overall experience. With Retina displays, all your pictures, videos, icons and texts appear sharp on all Mac devices. On the left side of the screen, you’ll see all your tabs, settings and options, allowing you to check your messages, mentions, notifications and more. Whenever you open something new, it will open to the right of your main timeline so you never have to miss out anything that goes on there.
Feature-wise, Tweetbot excels where a lot of other applications fail, and has some features that not even the original web client or applications of Twitter provide. The best feature we have come across is the multi-account support. If you work with different companies and manage their social media, this is a must-have feature because it means you can manage all the different accounts from one place. The transition from one account to the other is easy and smooth; you simply have to click on the avatar available at the upper, right corner of the screen. You will fall in love with the application simply because of this amazing, efficient way to manage all your different accounts.
The next feature a lot of people require and would absolutely love is the mute option. You can actually mute posts, users and even specific words and phrases that you do not want to see in your timeline. Can’t stand all the political feuding going on in your timeline? Mute all the political hashtags, along with users who keep the feud going. Sick of all the drama surrounding some celebrity? Mute the mentions of said celebrity. Don’t want someone spoiling the latest episode of the show you watch? You can mute anything and everything related to the show until you’ve seen the episode yourself. The best part is, you can mute either for a short amount of time or forever. This allows your timeline to remain clean and clear from the clutter.
There is an iOS Tweetbot app available as well, which provides a lot of the same functions and features. Overall, Tweetbot is the best application you can use for your MacOS devices because it has the most features, customizations and options available. It has excellent cross-device compatibility and the option to sync between your MacOS and iOS devices is perfect for people who use multiple devices. It also has support for a lot of third-party services such as Pocket, Bitly, Instapaper, and Droplr. This is definitely the app you need to have to make your Twitter experience on Mac worthwhile.
The above two are the top third-party applications or clients for using Twitter on your desktop, but there are others that you can use as well. Research different clients and experiment with a couple to see which one you want to keep and use.
Adeline 
Saira