How to bring back the old Twitter App Icon and Name on iOS

If you haven’t been living off-grid for the past few weeks, you may know that recently the giant social media app, Twitter, changed its name and it is now called “X”.

I am not kidding. X. That’s all. The old familiar bird icon is no more. Instead, Elon Musk changed it to what appears to be a UNICODE math alphabet symbol, the 𝕏.

Leaving aside how insane this rebranding is, considering Twitter has decades of online presence and the bird is printed on billions of products, posters, etc., the rebranding also means that the whole Twitter-esque language is no more.

Elon Musk changed Tweets / Tweet to Posts / Post. Retweets are now Reposts, Twitter Blue is now X Blue, and so on. Well, at least he dropped his initial idea of calling the posts “Xeets”.

How to bring back the old Twitter icon and name on iOS

Fortunately, if you’re an iOS user you can easily change the icon of your X / Twitter application back to its former glory with a few simple steps.

Follow along and you will have the old Twitter icon back on your home screen in no time.

Step 1: Open the Shortcuts App on iOS

You should be able to find it quite easily, but if you cannot find it, drag down on your screen to use the iOS search feature and type “Shortcuts”.

If you still can’t find it, you may have removed it at some point. To get it back, just open the App Store and search for the Shortcuts app.

Here’s a link for the Shortcuts app in the US App Store (Free).

Step 2: Create a new shortcut

Once the Shortcuts app is open, on the main screen of the app, tap the big blue + button on the top-right corner of your screen.

Now tap the blue +Add Action button. There should be multiple suggestions available, but you need the Open App action suggestion.

Step 3: Customize the new Shortcut

In the window that appears for creating an Open App action shortcut, you will have to specify which app to open. Tap the word “App” next to the Open action, and select the X / Twitter app from the list.

Now tap the little arrow-down icon next to the Open App label on top of the screen, and choose Add to Home Screen.

Step 4: Add the old Twitter name and Logo

Minimize the Shortcuts app and go to Safari. Search Google Images for the old Twitter icon and save it to your photo gallery, then go back to the Shortcuts app.

In the Add to Home Screen window, tap the purple shortcuts icon to select the old Twitter icon from your gallery.

Tap on the Open App name and type “Twitter” instead.

Now tap the blue Add button on the top-right corner. You should now have the old Twitter icon and name back. Feel free to hide the actual X app in a folder somewhere.

Every time you tap the shortcut it will open the app right away with no delay.

That’s all!

This change will carry on even if you update the twitter / X application. In fact, it will carry on even if you update your iOS version.

Final thoughts

As you can see, even though Elon Musk’s rebranding decisions may have wiped out almost 2 decades of brand image and awareness, we can still get our lovable bird back with just a few steps.

Remember that this guide works on ALL iOS devices that have the Shortcuts app installed, and it doesn’t require a jailbreak or any software modifications to the system. Enjoy, and long live the bird!