10 Twitter Clients for Linux Desktop and Command Line

This article shows a set awesome twitter clients which work on Linux Desktops and command line for your daily tweets. With the exponential growth in usage of twitter in recent years, more and more people like to express themselves on the go. twitter users prefer desktop application that enable them to tweet, send and receive messages, get the latest tweets from others. As always, linux users find themselves in lack of GUI clients for everything compare to other OS users. but, Not these time. I am writing these post to present you some of the best desktop and command line twitter clients for linux platform.

1. Choqok

Choqok is a twitter client having an impressive list of features. Although it is a micro-blogging client for KDE, it performs well in nearly all desktop environment. Choqok supports the latest twitter API. Most impressive about this client is its interface which simplifies the twitter experience. You can do quick posts, update your timeline and configure the application in just a few clicks.

Installing Choqok is very simple. In Ubuntu, you can download and install this app using Ubuntu software center. Here are the commands for installing it using the terminal.

On RedHat based Systems

sudo Yum install choqok

On Debian based systems

sudo apt-get install choqok

For the first time, you need to authorize this app to use your twitter account. Besides interface there is one excellent feature of Choqok is its filtering system. These filter options make it easy to scan through twitter feeds and find posts related to your filters. Here is how it works

• Click tools > configure filters. A new window pops up.
• Now click to + button to add filter definition.
• Now you need to make few choices. There are four options available
  1. Post text: filter the text of a post
  2. Author username: filter the Twitter user name
  3. Reply to user: filter replies from a user
  4. Author client: filter through the client used by a user
• After creating appropriate filter click ok bingo! Filter applied immediately.

You can manage multiple twitter accounts. Go to settings > configure.

You can also filter your search using list feature. Just go to home > drop down option (more)> add user list. Here you can see various list of any user. Just type the user name and click load list.

In Choqok we can add various twitter accounts. It also supports desktop notification functionalities

2. Corebird

Corebird is yet another stylish, easy-to-use and great twitter client for Linux. It comes with easy-to-use GUI and various remarkable features. Corebird is built for GNOME desktop environment. Here are simple steps for installing it in Ubuntu:
There's now a PPA that contains Corebird packages, available for Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 14.04.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntuhandbook1/corebird
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install corebird

Ubuntu 14.04 user also need Gnome3 and Gnome 3 Staging PPA for the dependencies:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome3-team/gnome3-staging

There are various feature are available at left corner of the application so easy to navigate. Like Choqok it also supports Twitter lists.

Here you can create new list and add users to this list while visiting that user's timeline. It also provides feature of filter. You can add filter of your desire. In Corebird it is really easy to add and manage multiple twitter accounts.

3. Tweetdeck

Tweetdeck is highly customizable, powerful blogging dashboard. It can be run within browsers like Firefox or chrome by installing it as an add-on. This client application is also capable to using multiple twitter account simultaneously. According to our preference, we can use it as a desktop or web application.

For installation here are quick steps:

1. Install Tweetdeck addon to chrome or chromium.
2. Within chrome app icon locate to Tweetdeck icon and right click.
3. Now you can open it on web browser itself or can use it as a desktop application by making appropriate choices.

Cool, stylish and easy to use home screen of Tweetdeck looks like above. Easy to use GUI makes every task done in just full clicks. Here is list of features available:

• Tweetdeck Supports twitter lists.
• It Easy to use keyboard shortcuts in Tweetdeck.
• There are multiple theme options in Tweetdeck.
• We can manage multiple timelines simultaneously in Tweetdeck.
• We also can schedule our tweets.
• It Support for direct message, block user, mute user and report user.

Composing tweets, adding media or secluding tweets is really easy in Tweetdeck.

4. Rainbowstream

Rainbowstream is a powerful terminal based twitter client. It offers many exciting features like any GUI based application. You need to type some command to get your task done. You can install Rainbowstream in Linux based systems using pip installation commands as follows:

sudo yum install python-pip
sudo pip install rainbowstream

After installation starts this tool just by typing rainbowstream and hit enter. Bingo! Terminal experience of twitter starts now. Rainbowstream home looks like this

For the first time it prompts for authorization for using your account. Once authorized you can use many available features. Type h and hit enter to see available options. See screenshot below.

As this screenshot shows type ‘h tweets’ and hit enter. You will see options like as follows:

Wow! Various options available. Want to do a tweet using terminal just type t 「your tweet」. Really easy. Highlights as follows:

• Many fancy commands to make easy user interaction.
• Hashtag, compose and search functions
• Nicely displayed colorful stream
• Support for sending and receiving direct messages

5. Anatine

Anatine is a light weighted twitter client application for Linux system. It has a simple user interface with quite few features including some keyboard shortcuts. For installing it on Linux systems here are some quick steps:

1) Download the latest release anatine from github repository.
2) Extract the downloaded package to /opt folder

sudo unzip ~/Downloads/Anatine-linux-*.zip -d /opt/Anatine

3) Create a shortcut for the app by running this command

gedit ~/.local/share/applications/anatine.desktop

4) Copy paste these lines to this .desktop file

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Anatine
Exec=/opt/Anatine/Anatine
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Icon=/opt/Anatine/resources/app/static/Icon.png
Finally launch Anatine from Unity Dash and enjoy!

6. Birdie

Birdie is also a light weighted twitter client tool available for Linux. It’s simple and easy to use GUI provides multiple features such as you can compose new tweets, view conversation history, add photos and direct message in it. This tool also provides facility to run and manage multiple twitter accounts at the same time.

Here are quick steps to download and install. Birdie officially provides a PPA for Ubuntu 14.04. You can use this PPA to install

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:birdie-team/stable
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install birdie

For other versions such as Ubuntu 14.10 and Ubuntu 15.04, you can download the .deb executables from there official websites

7. Franz

One application, endless possibilities!! Franz is a free messaging app combines chat and messaging services into one application. Franz currently supports Slack, WhatsApp, WeChat, HipChat, Facebook Messenger, Telegram, Google Hangouts, GroupMe, Skype and much more.

To install and setup follow these steps:

1) Download Franz for your distribution
2) Change into the same directory as the downloaded file, then

sudo tar -xf Franz-linux-your_version.tgz -C /opt/franz

3) (Optional)

wget "https://cdn-images-1.medium.com/max/360/1*v86tTomtFZIdqzMNpvwIZw.png" -O franz-icon.png 
sudo cp franz-icon.png /opt/franz

4) (Optional)

sudo touch /usr/share/applications/franz.desktop 
sudo vim /usr/share/applications/franz.desktop

5) Paste the following lines into the file, then save the file:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=Franz
Exec=/opt/Franz/Franz
Icon=/opt/Franz/franz-icon.png
Terminal=false
Type=Application
Categories=Messaging,Internet

Franz allows you to add each service many times. This makes Franz the perfect tool to manage multiple business and private accounts all at the same time. You could even use five different twitter or Facebook messenger accounts at once, if some inexplicable reason urges you to do so.

8. Chirp

Chirp is also a cool Linux twitter client.

Here are quick steps to download and install:

• Download Chirp and its also available for Windows and MAC OS also.
• Unzip it and change to its directory.
• Type ./Chirp on terminal and hit enter.

here we go !! Chirp is running. enter your twitter account details and enjoy.

chirp is somewhat similar to our previous app Anatine while it doesn't support keyboard shortcuts. we can do retweet, like, new tweet etc. It also provides some basic editing options like undo, redo, cut, copy and paste.

9. Command Line Tweeter

If you use Linux terminal and use twitter very often then you can use this slim, lightweight twitter client more effectively to post, manage and view your tweets. You can easily view, post tweet using this command line twitter tool and even posting the stdout of a command to your timeline. This article covers installation and usages of 'command line tweeter' a twitter client in any Linux flavors.

Generate Token

You need to create a new twitter apps by visiting https://apps.twitter.com/ . Click 'Create new apps' in the apps dashboard and then provide 'Name', 'Description' and 'website' value. Provide a placeholder value for 'website' if you don't own a website or you don't want to place your website URL here. Tick 'Twitter development agreement' and press 'Create Your twitter application' at the bottom of the page. You can now view 'API Key' and 'API Secret' under 'keys and Access Tokens' tab. Create Access Token by clicking 'create my access token' in 'Your Access Token' section. You will get a confirmation of token generation. Copy 'API Key', 'API Secret' , 'Access Token' and 'Access Token secret' in a notepad.

Place all the four token in the file ~/.cred

# vim ~/.cred
 api-key:  jX69Z8xxX7pDq90cOOuj2y69S
 api-sec: 9yrBFjS0LE3gmzLBFGmg4biOdE8gPufTJdZFoajtPuvhAUyNrg
 tok:16861928-6gKOEFIZaxjz93kA8tEUCX7jdwcgZEXUqsMhprYh0
 tok-sec: NyAkVG4plVLnzUma3ROpHhiPSF6kBI6l5gTw7nwqlpZWc

Installation

You can install command line twitter either by downloading binary or compile it from source. For Windows user, the easiest way is to download the binary and place it in a location pointed by 'path' environment variable. The process of installing the binary in any Linux environment is also same. Once you have copied the binary to a suitable location, change the permission and give the ownership to the user you want.

 # wget https://github.com/vmchale/command-line-tweeter/releases/download/v4.0.1/tweet-linux
 # sudo mv tweet-linux tweet
 # sudo cp tweet /usr/local/bin
 # sudo chmod 755 /usr/local/bin/tweet
 # sudo chown local-user:local-user /usr/local/bin/tweet
 # tweet --help

To build from source, install haskell stack first and then use stack setup and stack install inside unzipped directory to generate an executable by the name 'tweet'

 # curl -sSL https://get.haskellstack.org/ | sh
 # wget https://github.com/vmchale/command-line-tweeter/archive/v4.0.1.tar.gz
 # tar xf v4.0.1.tar.gz
 # cd command-line-tweeter-4.0.1
 # stack setup
 # stack install

The generated executable 'tweet' will be copied to ~/.local/bin You need to adjust PATH environment variable in /etc/profile or in ~/.bash_profile depending on your Linux distros.

PATH=$PATH:$HOME/.local/bin
export PATH

Usages of command line twitter

Type tweet --help from the terminal to check the usages of command line twitter.

# tweet --help

clit - a Command Line Interface SendInputer

Usage: tweet COMMAND [-c|--cred CREDENTIALS]
 SendInput from stdin!

Available options:
 -h,--help                Show this help text
 -c,--cred CREDENTIALS    path to credentials

Available commands:
 send                     Send a tweet from the command-line
 input                    Send a tweet from stdIn
 view                     Get your timeline
 user                     Get a user's profile
 raw                      Grab tweetInputs en masse.

To view your time-line execute any of the following two commands from the terminal. The second command will display the tweets in colors.

# tweet view
# tweet view --color

To view a user's profile, execute the following command from the terminal.

# tweet user LinOxide --color

To tweet stderr, run a command that pipes stderr to stdin. To test it type any command that does not exists in the system.

# ./configure 2>&1 >/dev/null | tweet input
POST succesful!

To send a tweet, use the following command.

# tweet send "From Clit"
POST succesful!

10. Turpial

Turpial is yet another fast, light weighted twitter client for Linux.  It is written in python and runs really very smooth.

To download and install turpial in Ubuntu you can use Ubuntu software center or copy paste following commands in terminal.

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:effie-jayx/turpial
sudo apt-get update 
sudo apt-get install turpial

It has a facility to run multiple accounts simultaneously. We can add multiple columns of individual account like timeline, direct, sent, favourites etc. There is a feature of queuing messages. Queued Messages will be sent every 30 minutes as long as turpial remain open. we can see queued messages and can delete them also.

Turpial has also the features of desktop notification and auto reload.

Conclusion

TTYTTER is also another popular command line Twitter client. We have presented you very good twitter client for linux available in the market. If you found any such clients in now or in future and you feel it should be here, please mentioned the name here. I promise you to review your suggestion and publish in this post.