X Communities Are Gone: What Replaced Them

X Communities timeline: announced, delayed, retired

The confusion comes from two dates and a long silence. X first said May 6, then May 30. After that, nothing. Here is every step, with the source that reported it.

Why X said it was removing Communities

Nikita Bier, then X’s head of product, posted the change on April 22, 2026: “Due to declining usage, we’re deprecating X Communities on May 6.” Admins were told to pin a group chat link so members could move over.

In a follow-up quoted by TechCrunch, he gave the numbers: Communities “were used by less than 0.4% of users, yet contributed to 80% of spam reports, financial scams, and malware on X.” He added that some weeks the feature took half the team’s time, and that most of the few Communities that did well were sign-up channels for Kick or paid clipper groups.

A Community Note under the original post pointed out the obvious. Communities were a feed you browse whenever you like. A chat is not. Keep that in mind when you pick a replacement.

What X’s own pages say today

We cannot open every Community from the outside. So we checked what X itself still publishes. On October 12, 2026, none of these pages carried a retirement notice:

Pages: Join a Community on X, About X Premium and About Chat, checked October 12, 2026.

If you posted in a Community, the help page has good news: “Your posts to a Community will not be deleted if the Community is deleted.” Community posts also show on your profile and in search, like regular posts.

What replaced Communities: group chats, Custom Timelines, Lists

X did not ship one replacement. It split the job in two. And an older tool, Lists, still works:

Sources: X Help, About Chat, Engadget and TechCrunch (group size), TechCrunch and MacRumors (Custom Timelines), X Help, Lists and X Premium. Checked October 12, 2026.

Custom Timelines are topics such as Technology, Business & Finance or Software Development. Grok picks the posts for each one, not hashtags, per TechCrunch’s hands-on. They are broad. A Community about bootstrapped SaaS does not fit any of them. That is why Lists and replies matter more for founders than the new feeds.

How to set up an XChat group chat with a join link

1. 1

   Start a group in Chat

   Open Messages or Chat. Tap the new message icon. Add the first few people you already talk to.
2. 2

   Turn on the invite link

   X calls it a Group Chat Invite: a public link to the group. Admins can switch the link on or off at any time.
3. 3

   Post the link and pin that post to your profile

   Share the link on your timeline. Then pin the post from its more menu. People who find you later see it first.
4. 4

   Approve requests

   When someone taps the link, an admin has to approve them first. Check requests daily.

From X Help, About Chat, checked October 12, 2026. The group name and avatar are public and not encrypted. Size at launch was 350 to 500 members, with 1,000 as the goal. Check the cap in the app before you move a large group.

How to find and pin a Custom Timeline

1. 1

   Scroll the Home tabs to the right

   Go past For You, Following and any Lists you have pinned.
2. 2

   Tap the plus (+) sign

   It opens the topic picker, with over 75 topics.
3. 3

   Pin and reorder

   You can pin up to 10 topics or Lists in total and reorder them from the same screen.

From TechCrunch’s hands-on and MacRumors. At launch: Premium only, iOS first. Coverage of X’s rebuilt Android app in July 2026 still listed Custom Timelines as coming. Check your app.

If you ran or relied on a Community

What to do instead of posting in Communities

How Grok labels posts for Custom Timelines: TechCrunch, from an X spokesperson.

A Community gave you one thing: a place where everyone cared about the same topic. On the main timeline, that place is the replies under the right accounts. Here is what to do instead:

Who to pick and how fast to reply is in the reply guy strategy. To turn a first reply into a real connection, read how to network on X. If your own posts get little response while you do this, start with how to get engagement on X when you are starting out.

For reading, Lists do more than Communities did. You can pin a List next to For You and Following. You can follow other people’s Lists without following every account on them, per X Help. Want several Lists open side by side? The free options are in TweetDeck alternatives.

ClimbX helps with the first and third steps. It finds posts in your niche worth replying to. It also drafts posts in your voice, based on what works for accounts a few times your size. You edit and post every one yourself.

Frequently asked questions