X Look — reading mode for x.com

A small Chrome extension (MV3) that turns x.com into something you can open at work: no left navigation, no trends column, no promoted posts, and a timeline that reads like a list instead of a feed.

Website

• English
• فارسی (Persian)

What it does

• Removes the left nav entirely. It is gone, not hidden behind a hover.
• Hides the right rail: search, "Subscribe to Premium", today's trends, who-to-follow.
• Hides Grok and the messages drawer, plus the per-post Grok button, the view count, and the "Translated from …" and "Made with AI" lines.
• Drops promoted/ads from the timeline (exact label match, so a normal post that happens to say "promoted" stays).
• Calms the timeline: a 660px centred column with a hairline edge and a faint wash behind it, serif tweet text at 17px/1.5, hairline separators, the like/retweet bar dimmed until you hover a post.
• Filters posts: a "Filter posts" box sits in the empty gutter left of the column (bottom left on narrow windows). Type words and only posts containing all of them stay; the rest are hidden and counted under the box. Click the × in the box to clear it and see every post again.
• Sorts the posts on the page: a menu under the filter box re-orders the posts X has loaded, newest first, most liked first, or popular now (likes per hour since posting, so new and popular at once), and "X's order" puts them back. It sorts what is on the page, not your whole timeline.
• Blanks out images and videos: each picture becomes a compact grey tile with an eye "Image" button, each clip a tile with a play "Video" button (hidden clips are paused). Click anywhere on the tile and only that item appears, up to 300px, so a four-photo post is opened one picture at a time; a revealed clip starts playing. Clicking a tile does not follow the media link.

It only changes layout and typography. X's own light/dim/dark theme is left alone, so it works in all three.

Install in Chrome

You can install X Look straight from GitHub. It works in Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave and other Chromium-based browsers. In the browser it is called Calm Reader for X, with a yellow X icon.

Before you start:

• You will turn on Developer mode, a Chrome setting that lets you add an extension from a folder on your computer. Some work computers block this setting. If the switch is missing or greyed out, your IT department can tell you whether you may use it.
• An extension installed this way does not update itself. To get a new version, follow Update to a new version below. A Chrome Web Store version, which updates automatically, has been submitted and is waiting for Google's review.

Install

1. Download x-look.zip. This link always gives you the latest version.
2. Unzip it into a folder you will keep, for example Documents/x-look. Chrome runs the extension from this folder, so if you delete or move the folder, the extension stops working.
3. In Chrome's address bar, type chrome://extensions and press Enter. The Extensions page opens.
4. Turn on Developer mode in the top-right corner of that page. A Load unpacked button appears.
5. Click Load unpacked and choose the folder from step 2, the one that contains manifest.json. A card named Calm Reader for X appears.
6. Click the puzzle-piece Extensions button in Chrome's toolbar, then click the pin next to Calm Reader for X. The yellow X icon now stays in the toolbar.
7. Open or reload x.com. If the left menu is gone and the posts sit in one quiet column, it is working.

In Edge, the page in step 3 is edge://extensions and Developer mode is in the left panel. In Brave, the page is brave://extensions. The other steps are the same.

Switch it off and on

Click the yellow X icon in the toolbar. The icon shows off, and x.com looks as it normally does in every tab. Click it again to switch X Look back on. Chrome remembers your choice.

Update to a new version

1. Download x-look.zip again.
2. Unzip it into the same folder, replacing the old files.
3. On chrome://extensions, click the reload arrow on the Calm Reader for X card.
4. Reload x.com.

GitHub Releases lists every version and what changed in it.

Remove it

On chrome://extensions, click Remove on the Calm Reader for X card. You can then delete the folder.

From the source code (for developers)

1. Run git clone https://github.com/cocodedk/x-look.git.
2. On chrome://extensions, turn on Developer mode.
3. Click Load unpacked and choose the cloned folder.

Files

File	Purpose
manifest.json	MV3 manifest and content script match
x-look.css	All the hiding and reading-list styling
background.js	Toolbar icon: switches X Look off and on
sort.js	The sort menu: re-orders the loaded posts by time, likes or likes per hour
controls.css	Styles for X Look's own controls (reveal buttons, filter box, sort menu)
x-look.js	Promoted-post and label hiding, the image/video reveal buttons, the filter box, and following the on/off switch
cards.js	Cards mode: the Cards button, one post per screen, and driving the world behind the cards
cards.css	Cards mode layout: the cards, big type, snapping from post to post
cards-constants.js, pixels.js, sprites.js, world.js, frame.js	The moving pixel-art world behind the cards
icons/	Extension icons
website/	Source of xlook.cocode.dk (English + Persian)

Caveats

• X changes its DOM regularly. Everything here keys off stable-ish hooks (header[role="banner"], [data-testid="sidebarColumn"], [data-testid="primaryColumn"], [data-testid="tweet"], [data-testid="tweetPhoto"], [data-testid="videoComponent"]), not generated class names, so breakage should be rare.
• Narrow (mobile-width) windows keep X's bottom bar, so navigation still works where there is no room for, or use of, a left nav.

Privacy

X Look collects nothing and sends nothing anywhere. It makes no network requests of its own, runs only on x.com and twitter.com, and stores one setting (on or off) in Chrome's local extension storage. Filter words and the hidden count live only in the tab's memory. It does not stop X's own data collection, and hidden pictures and videos are still downloaded from X; they are only kept out of sight until you click. The full statement, including the website's, is at xlook.cocode.dk/#privacy.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md for local setup, packaging the release zip and the PR checklist.

Author

Babak Bandpey — https://cocode.dk | LinkedIn | GitHub

License

Apache-2.0 | © 2026 Cocode | Created by Babak Bandpey