Search Operators

Reference for X API v2 Search operators — keywords, users, URLs, hashtags, engagement thresholds, language, geo, and Post type filters with examples.

This page provides a complete list of operators available when building a query for the Search API endpoints.

Overview

Operators are used to match on specific Post attributes. There are two types:

• Standalone operators — Can be used alone or with any other operators
• Conjunction-required operators — Must be used with at least one standalone operator

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Keyword and Phrase Operators

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
keyword	Standalone	Matches a keyword within the Post body (tokenized match)	pepsi OR cola OR "coca cola"
emoji	Standalone	Matches an emoji within the Post body	(😃 OR 😡) 😬
"exact phrase"	Standalone	Matches the exact phrase within the Post body	("X API" OR #v2) -"recent search"

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Entity Operators

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
#	Standalone	Matches Posts containing a hashtag (exact match)	#thankunext #fanart
@	Standalone	Matches Posts mentioning a username	(@XDevelopers OR @API) -@X
$	Standalone	Matches Posts containing a cashtag	$twtr OR @XDevelopers -$fb

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User Operators

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
from:	Standalone	Matches Posts from a specific user	from:XDevelopers OR from:API
to:	Standalone	Matches Posts in reply to a specific user	to:XDevelopers OR to:API
retweets_of:	Standalone	Matches Retweets of a specific user	retweets_of:twitterdev

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URL Operators

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
url:	Standalone	Tokenized match on URL (matches url or expanded_url fields)	url:"https://developer.twitter.com"

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Context and Entity Operators

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
context:	Standalone	Matches Posts with a specific domain/entity pair	context:10.799022225751871488
entity:	Standalone	Matches Posts with a specific entity string value (recent search only)	entity:"Michael Jordan"
conversation_id:	Standalone	Matches Posts in a conversation thread	conversation_id:1334987486343299072

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List Operator

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
list:	Standalone	Matches Posts from members of a specific List	list:123

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Post Reference Operators

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
in_reply_to_tweet_id:	Standalone	Matches replies to a specific Post	in_reply_to_tweet_id:1539382664746020864
retweets_of_tweet_id:	Standalone	Matches Retweets of a specific Post	retweets_of_tweet_id:1539382664746020864
quotes_of_tweet_id:	Standalone	Matches Quote Tweets of a specific Post	quotes_of_tweet_id:1539382664746020864

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Location Operators

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
place:	Standalone	Matches Posts tagged with a location	place:"new york city" OR place:seattle
place_country:	Standalone	Matches Posts with a country code	place_country:US OR place_country:MX
point_radius:	Standalone	Matches Posts within a radius of a point	point_radius:[2.355128 48.861118 16km]
bounding_box:	Standalone	Matches Posts within a bounding box	bounding_box:[-105.301758 39.964069 -105.178505 40.09455]

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Post Type Operators

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
is:retweet	Conjunction required	Matches Retweets	data @XDevelopers -is:retweet
is:reply	Conjunction required	Matches replies	from:XDevelopers is:reply
is:quote	Conjunction required	Matches Quote Tweets	"sentiment analysis" is:quote
is:verified	Conjunction required	Matches Posts from verified authors	#nowplaying is:verified
-is:nullcast	Conjunction required	Excludes promotional Posts (must be negated)	"mobile games" -is:nullcast

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Content Type Operators

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
has:hashtags	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with hashtags	from:XDevelopers -has:hashtags
has:cashtags	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with cashtags	#stonks has:cashtags
has:links	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with links	from:XDevelopers has:links
has:mentions	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with mentions	#nowplaying has:mentions
has:media	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with media (photo, GIF, video)	(kittens OR puppies) has:media
has:images	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with images	#meme has:images
has:video_link	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with native X videos	#icebucketchallenge has:video_link
has:geo	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with geolocation data	recommend #paris has:geo

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Language Operator

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
lang:	Conjunction required	Matches Posts classified as a specific language	recommend #paris lang:en

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Engagement Operators

These precision operators filter Posts by minimum engagement counts. They are available on /2/tweets/search/recent, /2/tweets/search/all, /2/tweets/counts/recent, and /2/tweets/counts/all following the May 4, 2026 migration to the new X core platform search index.

Use them to narrow results to Posts that crossed an engagement threshold. For example, surface higher-signal content during a real-time event or filter long-tail noise from a broad topic query.

Operator	Type	Summary	Example
min_likes:	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with at least the specified number of likes	coffee min_likes:100
min_replies:	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with at least the specified number of replies	from:XDevelopers min_replies:10
min_reposts:	Conjunction required	Matches Posts with at least the specified number of reposts	#launch min_reposts:50

Engagement counts are evaluated at query time and may lag real-time activity by a short interval. These operators require at least one other standalone operator in the query (they are conjunction-required).

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Logical Operators

Operator	Summary	Example
OR	Logical OR between expressions	cat OR dog
Space (AND)	Logical AND between expressions	cat dog (both required)
()	Grouping for complex expressions	(cat OR dog) -is:retweet
-	Negation/exclusion	cat -grumpy

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Supported Languages

The lang: operator supports these BCP 47 language codes:

Language	Code	Language	Code	Language	Code
Amharic	am	Greek	el	Portuguese	pt
Arabic	ar	Gujarati	gu	Romanian	ro
Armenian	hy	Hebrew	iw	Russian	ru
Basque	eu	Hindi	hi	Serbian	sr
Bengali	bn	Hungarian	hu	Simplified Chinese	zh-CN
Bulgarian	bg	Indonesian	in	Slovak	sk
Catalan	ca	Italian	it	Slovenian	sl
Croatian	hr	Japanese	ja	Spanish	es
Czech	cs	Kannada	kn	Swedish	sv
Danish	da	Korean	ko	Tamil	ta
Dutch	nl	Latvian	lv	Telugu	te
English	en	Lithuanian	lt	Thai	th
Estonian	et	Malayalam	ml	Traditional Chinese	zh-TW
Finnish	fi	Marathi	mr	Turkish	tr
French	fr	Norwegian	no	Ukrainian	uk
German	de	Persian	fa	Urdu	ur
Georgian	ka	Polish	pl	Vietnamese	vi

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Query limitations

Access level	Recent search	Full-archive search
Self-serve	512 characters	1,024 characters
Enterprise	4,096 characters	4,096 characters

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