Yes, but keep them apart when you can. Towels shed lint and dry much slower than sheets, so a shared load rarely comes out even.
Laundry day always tempts you to cram everything into one load, and sheets plus towels feels like a natural match since both are just bedroom and bathroom basics.
The washer itself handles the combo fine — the real issue shows up in texture and drying time once the cycle ends.
Terry cloth towels are looped and shed lint constantly, especially in the first ten or so washes. That lint clings to smooth cotton or microfiber sheets and can leave a fuzzy film across pillowcases and top sheets that you end up shaking out or re-washing to fix. Percale and sateen weaves show trapped lint more than looser weaves like flannel, so the effect is worse on higher-thread-count sheets.
A full bath towel soaks up two to three times its dry weight in water. Four wet towels can weigh 6-8 pounds, while a queen sheet set weighs closer to 3-4 pounds dry. That mismatch throws off the spin cycle balance on some washers and can trigger a mid-cycle stop, an unbalanced-load error, or extra vibration that wears on the machine over time.
Sheets typically dry in 30-40 minutes on medium heat. Towels need 45-60 minutes on medium-high because the terry loops trap moisture deep in the fabric. Dry them together and you either pull sheets out early while they are still slightly damp, or over-dry them waiting on the towels, which adds static and general wear over dozens of cycles.
Wash towels alone once or twice when they are brand new, since that is when they shed the most. A dryer sheet or wool dryer balls tossed in with a mixed load helps trap loose lint before it settles into the sheet fibers. Turning sheets right-side out and shaking them before folding also removes surface lint quickly.
A normal or mixed-fabric setting, roughly 45-60 minutes, suits a combined towel-and-sheet load better than a quick wash, since towels need the longer agitation time to rinse fully clean while sheets tolerate it without harm. Adding an extra rinse for towel-heavy loads also helps clear residual detergent that towels tend to hold onto more than smoother sheet fabric.
A one-off mixed load won't ruin anything, but sheets and towels are built differently enough that separate washes give a cleaner, less linty result. Keep it as your default, not just a rare fix, and both fabrics hold up better over months of washing.
Terry towels shed loose cotton fibers, especially when new, and those fibers cling to smoother sheet fabric during agitation. Washing towels alone a few times first cuts this down noticeably.
You can, but a full mixed load of sheets, bath towels, and hand towels often overloads a standard washer. Split it into two smaller loads if the machine feels crowded past two-thirds full.
Not directly, but drying them together often means over-drying the sheets while waiting for thicker towels to finish, and repeated over-drying is what causes cotton sheets to shrink and thin out over time.
Warm water around 90-110°F cleans both well without the fading risk of hot water; check labels since some fitted sheets with elastic prefer cold.