Post Limit FAQ

rev 1.03 - updated 17 July 2017

 
Part 1: About tumblr post limit

What is post limit?

Tumblr allocates you a max of 250 posts per day. A “day” runs from midnight to midnight, New York time, regardless of where you live. When that time comes around - the "post limit reset" - you get a new batch of 250.

This site tells you how many you have left and how long till the "reset" (when you'll have 250 again).

tl;dr: 250 posts per day!

Does queuing count as part of post limit?

This gets asked a lot, and the question is somewhat ambiguous: Adding posts to your queue does NOT count (and neither does adding them to “drafts”. But when a previously queued post actually gets posted (or if you manually post from your drafts), that does count.

tl;dr: going "in to queue" NO! (but coming "out from queue" YES)

What happens after I hit post limit?

Well you can’t post (duh). You also can’t even add posts to your own queue or drafts, even though that doesn’t count as “posting” as mentioned above.  And while you can ask people questions (and get their answers), you can’t reply to a question yourself even if it’s a private reply. If you’re in that situation, just reply with a new “ask”.

You can “like” posts, however, and many people do that to “mark” them so they can post them right from their likes the next day.

Interestingly, you can post submissions (which really make no sense).  So if you need to make one more emergency post (typically “hey guys, I’m on post limit!”) you can ask a friend to submit that text or, if you have another account, submit to yourself from there. Then just go ahead post it.

Summary of things you can and cannot do while on post limit:

  • Reblog a post NO
  • Like a post YES
  • Add to queue NO
  • Add to drafts NO
  • Post from queue NO
  • Post from drafts NO
  • Receive submission YES
  • Post received submission YES
  • Submit to someone NO
  • Send an ask YES
  • Receive an ask YES
  • Respond to an ask (privately or publically) NO
  • Receive a response from an ask YES?
  • Send or receive fanmail YES obsolete
  • Send messages using the messanging system ??
  • Receive messages on the messaging system ??

tl;dr: you cant post! (plus and some other stuff)

Will I know when I hit post limit?

If you’re on tumblr on a desktop browser, it will say in red text “you’ve exceeded your daily post limit” when you try to reblog or post. The mobile app does not tell you though! It lets you go merrily on your way, thinking you're posting even though you’re not. This is very dumb and is a source of great annoyance.

tl;dr: tumblr tells you (but not on mobile)

I kept “posting” past the limit on mobile - will those posts post later? Can I at least “get them back” somehow?

No and No. Unfortunately they’re “lost” forever.

tl;dr: no

I have sideblogs – does each have a separate post limit of 250?

No.  It doesn't really apply to the blog, it applies to the person. It’s 250 per “account”, total. And posts made to sideblogs count - add them all in.. In other words if you post 150 to your main blog and another 100 to a sideblog, you’re done for the day

Important Note: While tumblr counts posts made to sideblogs, this website does not know about them. It will therefore give you erroneous results if you’re posting to multiple blogs. In the example above, where 150 posts were made to the main blog, this site will say you still have 100 left when you check your main blog, but you actually have zero. There’s a “known limitation” of this site and there’s nothing I can do about that. The fact that you even have a sideblog is considered private by tumblr.

Note that you can enter the name of sideblog separately though. If you see you’ve posted 100 there see you've posted 150 to your main, you can just add 100 and 150 together yourself and you'll realize you’re done for the day.

tl;dr: no

What if I have another tumblr account with its own login?

Well yeah, that works, each gets 250 since tumblr doesn’t even realize they’re owned by the same person.

tl;dr: that works

Can I get around post limit?

Basically no. Despite persistent rumors to the contrary, changing your time zone in your settings does not work -your time zone has nothing to do with it.

You can use the previously described submission trick for an “emergency post”.

It is also possible to create a single blog to which “you” can post 500, but only by using two accounts. You create a sideblog on one account and then create an invitation for someone else to join. Then go ahead and “be that other person” i.e. go ahead and join your own blog from the second account. Now it’s a group blog with “two owners”. In that case you can post 250 from one account then go log in to the other account and post 250 more to the same blog. You could even extend this to three or more accounts if you really wanted to.

tl;dr: no

Why does post limit exist?

I’ve never seen a written answer from tumblr on this. Many people say that tumblr staff feels that people who post too much “need to get out more” and “get a life” – which may be true but I doubt that’s the reason. Some say it’s to “control the load on tumblr’s servers but that does not seem likely either. I believe it’s just an “anti-spam” thing; they don’t want blogs whose main purpose it is to “spam peoples dashboards” with an inordinate number of posts

tl;dr: no one knows

 
Part 2: About this website

Hey, your site says I have several posts left and I don’t! I’m already on post limit!

Tumblr does not make their post limit count publicly available. So this site actually "counts" how many posts you've made. The result it gets is, for most people, either exact or at least very close.

But the results in several known limitations that can cause errors, even substantial ones. If any of these apply to you, please adjust your expectations accordingly!

Limitations:

  • Deleted Posts: The site counts posts are currently on your blog  If you posted something and deleted it, tumblr still counts that as a post. But this site won't it. So you should "subtract one" for every post you may have deleted today. This includes answered "asks" that you posted and then deleted, which is fairly common.

  • Multiple Blogs: If you post to a secondary or "sideblog" (another blog on the same Tumblr account), those posts count as part of the same 250. But those won't get counted here - the site only counts the posts on the blog whose name you entered. If this applies to you in a significant way, you'll have to enter the name of the sideblog separately and add the two together yourself. This process can't be "automated" because this site has no way of knowing about your sideblog - tumblr considers that private.

  • Privately Answered "Asks": Publicly posted asks clearly count as posts, and this site will count them in. But apparently privately answered asks count as a posts too! This makes no sense, of course, but nonetheless seems to be true. It's probably technical limitation where Tumblr treats all ask answers the same, regardless of whether or not they are publicly posted. So you may have to adjust your count down if you've answered a lot of "asks" today.
  • Uploaded Pictures: There's a separate limit of 150 if you're uploading pictures (as opposed to just reblogging them). Reaching this limit is very uncommon though.

tl;dr: you may have less posts left than this site says!

Your site is showing my “likes” - I don’t like that! That’s private!!

Public access to your "likes" is a tumblr default setting, but you can easily “opt out”. It’s currently under Settings -> Dashboard, find the setting “Share posts you like” and just turn the little switch next off. You can come back to this site and confirm it now says “not shared”.

tl;dr: opt out on your dash settings

I'm getting a "bog is not accessible" error - why is that?

  • The blog is password protected, or
  • The blog is set to "hidden" ("only viewable within the tumblr dashboard")

If either of those settings are in effect, this site is unable to access your blog to count the posts. You'll have to change the appropriate item in your dashboard settings to use this site.

tl;dr: change your settings

Can you show follower count?

This is the most frequently asked question of all - the answer is “no”. Tumblr does not make that information available. Number of followers, who they are, and number of blogs you follow and their identities are all considered private.

tl;dr: no

Your site says my blog was created in 1969 and is 45 years old!

This means there are one or more posts on your blog with that date, due to some tumblr glitch. Go to your archive click on “month” and then scroll backwards thru the years, and you’ll probably find the “offending post(s)”. If you delete them, the problem will be fixed. Alternatively you could just keep the weird post(s) around as a novelty.

The reason 1969 comes up is this: if the date in tumbler’s data base is corrupted or something it will often just be “zero”. Many computers, including tumblr's database, store time as “seconds since Jan 1, 1970 GMT”. So “zero” is midnight of Jan 1, 1970. But many time zones, including the US, are several hours behind GMT. So "time zero" shows as New Year’s Eve, 1969.

I guess I could “fix” this to at least say “unknown” (e.g. if the date is prior tumbler’s existence) but so far I haven’t bothered to do that.

tl;dr: not my bug!

How come it's not showing the header image?

For some dumb reason, tumblr hasn't documented a direct way to retrieve the header info, but does include the entire header if a post has your caption anywhere on it (I guess so it can quickly display the header in the event of a "mouseover" over the caption's attribution). So while I'm retrieving posts to count them, I'll also process the header if it happens to go by on one of the posts I'm retrieving. I'm looking alternatives to this.

tl;dr: Sorry, I can't always get it

What is NSFW? Explicit? Adult?

NSFW is a relatively popular (in the US, anyway) slang word that refers to "adult content" - typically nudity or sexual content, but also could include graphic violence and other stuff. It actually stands for "Not Safe For Work", referring to the fact that it would be inappropriate to be viewing such material while you're on the job (at least for most jobs!).

Tumblr asks that you voluntarily flag your blog as NSFW if you post or reblog such content. That helps them screen such material from viewers who'd prefer not to see it. There's a switch in your settings where you do that. Previously it was actually labelled "NSFW", though Tumblr has since relabelled it "Adult Content". I'm still using the original terminology on this site though.

If the site says a blog is NSFW, it simply means the owner has chosen to activate that setting,i.e. this site just shows what the owner's own setting for what their own blog is.

NOTE: At their discretion, Tumblr may set this "for you" in which case you may not be able to turn it back off without first contacting them.

7 July 2017: Tumblr has re-labeled it again, it's now called "explicit". A subset of these blogs are also flagged by tumblr as "adult" - you don't have control over this. This causes your icon/avatar to be "pixelated" (basically hidden) on the dash, but beyond that it's not know what "adult" does or why tumblr sometimes sets it.

Tumblr is now saying all explicit blogs will be soon be "viewable only by logged in users who have safe mode off".

It remains to be seen how they do this, hopefully it will be better than the redirect hack they now use when you voluntarily request you blog be "hidden". That hack uses an awkward redirect to send the viewer to an annoying inset window. You no longer have a theme, archive, links or much of anything else. Additionally this postlimit website will no longer work for you.

tl;dr: sex and stuff

How come you don't show as much info for NSFW blogs?

I've gotten a couple of warnings from Google AdSense, the people who supply the banner ads that support this site. They don't want their ads associated with any "adult" pictures or even links to them.

tl;dr: $$$

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