X Communities closed: where your community can go now

• Communities closed on May 30, 2026. The original date of May 6 was pushed back after criticism.
• X's own replacements are XChat group chats (private, capped in size) and custom topic timelines (Premium, rolling out by platform).
• A public community can live on as a List plus a hashtag plus saved searches. That is what a knot is.

For about four years, X Communities gave groups a home inside the platform: a member list, admins, rules and a feed that only members could post to. That ended in 2026. If you ran a Community, or relied on one, here is what happened and how to keep the group going with features that still exist.

What happened

In April 2026, X announced that Communities would close. The company said the feature was used by a very small share of people while producing a large share of spam reports, scams and malware links. The first shutdown date was May 6, 2026. After criticism from creators and community admins, X moved the date back to May 30, 2026, and Communities were switched off at the end of that month.

Two replacements were offered at the time:

• XChat group chats. Admins were encouraged to open a group chat, pin its invite link in the Community before it closed, and move members across. Group chats are private messaging. At announcement they held a few hundred members, with X saying the cap would rise toward 1,000.
• Custom timelines. Topic feeds sorted by X's Grok model into a fixed set of more than 75 topics, which you can pin to Home. They launched for Premium subscribers on iOS first. They follow X's topics, not your group.

Neither replaces what a public Community did, which was let strangers find a group, read it and join in.

What a community actually needs

Strip a Community down and it did four jobs:

1. Know who is in. The member list.
2. Read the group in one place. The Community feed.
3. Let outsiders find it. Search and the Community's public page.
4. Keep it civil. Rules and admins who could remove posts and people.

Every one of those can be rebuilt with standard X features. The pieces just aren't stapled together any more, which is where a knot comes in.

Rebuilding with a knot

A knot is our name for a community tied together from ordinary X tools: a List of members, a hashtag, and a few saved searches. The knot builder on the home page turns your member handles and hashtags into the searches and a List checklist.

1. Make the member list. Create an X List with your core members. Lists hold up to 5,000 accounts, are public by default and can be pinned so they show up as a tab on Home. If you exported or screenshotted your member list before the shutdown, start there. If not, start with the people you remember posting most, and add others as they turn up. Our guide to using X Lists as a community feed covers the details.

2. Pick a hashtag. A Community had a name; a knot has a hashtag. Choose something short and unclaimed, search it first, and put it in the List description and your bios. The hashtag planner checks the tag and helps you set a regular chat time if you want one.

3. Save the searches. A List shows only its members. A hashtag search shows everyone using the tag, including new people you haven't met. The knot builder makes both, plus a "members on topic" feed and a feed of replies to members, each as a Latest and a Top link. Save them on X or bookmark them.

4. Write the rules down. Without admin tools you can't delete other people's posts, so the rules become social: what the hashtag is for, what gets someone removed from the List. Our moderation guide has a template.

5. Keep a private room if you need one. For the handful of people who organise things, an XChat group chat is fine. Use it as a back room, not as the community itself.

What you lose, honestly

Some things don't come back. A List can't stop non-members from using your hashtag, and there is no way to remove someone else's post from a search. A Community could keep a feed members-only; a knot is always public unless you make the List private, in which case only you see it. And anyone can copy your List or your knot.

For most groups that is an acceptable trade. The community becomes something people carry with them, a List they follow and a tag they use, rather than a room that the platform can close.

Moving checklist

• Write down or export your most active members while you remember them
• Create the List and pin it
• Choose and search the hashtag before announcing it
• Build the knot and save the feeds
• Post a pinned announcement with the List link and hashtag
• Share the knot link so others can make their own copy
• Decide whether a small XChat group is needed for organisers

Questions

Can I still open my old Community?

No. The feature was switched off at the end of May 2026. If you kept notes of who your active members were, you can rebuild the core of the group as an X List.

Is an XChat group the same as a Community?

No. A group chat is private messaging with a member cap, closer to a WhatsApp group than a public forum. It suits a small inner circle, not an open community that strangers can find.

Do I need Premium to rebuild my community?

No. Lists, search, hashtags and pinned Home tabs are free features. Custom topic timelines were launched for Premium users, but they sort posts into X's own topics rather than your group.