Short answer
To reach a target ratio by unfollowing alone, you can keep at most followers ÷ target accounts, so you unfollow the rest. To reach it by growing alone, you need target × following followers. Most people do a bit of both, by hand and over weeks, because mass unfollowing in a short period is something X's rules warn against.
The arithmetic
With F followers, G following and a target ratio T (followers per account followed):
| Route | Formula | Example: 800 followers, 1,600 following, target 1 |
|---|---|---|
| Unfollow only | Unfollow G − ⌊F ÷ T⌋ | 1,600 − 800 = 800 unfollows |
| Grow only | Gain ⌈T × G⌉ − F followers | 1,600 − 800 = 800 more followers |
| Weekly mix | Week by week: followers + growth, following − unfollows + new follows | 20 new followers and 40 unfollows a week: 14 weeks |
The weekly mix is simulated one week at a time for up to ten years, so it handles plans where following goes up as well as down.
A clean-up that doesn't look like churn
- Start with dead weight. Inactive, suspended and deactivated accounts first. They add nothing to your timeline.
- Do it by hand, in small batches. A few dozen at a sitting, spread across days, is how people normally tidy their follows. Our planner flags paces above about a tenth of your follows a week as a rule of thumb.
- Don't re-follow to fish for follow-backs. That cycle is exactly what X's rules describe as follow churn.
- Skip the apps that promise to unfollow for you. X's rules prohibit automated mass unfollowing, and handing a third-party app access to your account carries its own risk.
- Grow the top of the fraction. Replies to people in your field, a clear bio and a good pinned post do more for a ratio over a few months than any purge.
When the 5,000 cap matters
Above 5,000 follows, X stops letting every account follow freely. It applies a follower-to-following limit that it works out per account and doesn't publish. If you've hit it, the follow button stops working until your followers grow. The planner warns when you're past that line. More in X's rules on following and unfollowing.
Questions
How many accounts can I unfollow a day?
X publishes a follow limit (400 a day) but no unfollow number. What its rules do prohibit is following or unfollowing large numbers of unrelated accounts in a short period, especially with automation, and follow-unfollow cycles. Spreading a clean-up over weeks and doing it by hand keeps you clear of that.
Who should I unfollow first?
Accounts that have stopped posting, suspended or deactivated accounts, and accounts you followed only because they followed you and never read. You lose nothing by removing them.
Should I unfollow people who don't follow back?
Only if you don't want to read them. A ratio is a by-product of how you use X, not a goal in itself. Unfollowing interesting accounts to tidy a number usually makes your timeline worse.
Why does the planner warn about following new accounts?
Following new accounts while unfollowing others on a schedule is the pattern X calls follow churn. Following people you actually want to read is fine; following them in bulk to get follow-backs and then dropping them is not.