How to download an archive of your Twitter data

Nowadays, there appears to be virtually each day upheaval at Twitter. You could be enthusiastic about leaving the social community, or you could be decided to remain and see what occurs. In both case, when a web-based app is experiencing that sort of Sturm und Drang, it’s often a good suggestion to again up your information simply in case. In Twitter’s case, which means downloading an archive of your information.

In response to Twitter’s support page, your archive will embrace your account data and historical past, any apps and gadgets you used to entry it, any accounts you’ve blocked or muted, all of the pursuits and different advert information that Twitter has listed for you, and your tweet historical past.

It’s quite simple to use for a obtain of your archived materials on Twitter.

• Within the net app, go to the left-hand menu and click on on Extra. Within the cellular app, faucet your private icon within the upper-left nook.
• Choose Settings and Help > Settings and privateness > Your account. (Or, for those who’re in a rush, you may just use this link.)
• Click on on Obtain an archive of your information. You could be requested to confirm your account.
• Click on on Request archive.

In response to Twitter, it may take as much as 24 hours earlier than you obtain the hyperlink that may will let you obtain your archival information.

After you have all of your information, you may then select to go away your account — or not. No matter occurs, at the very least you now have a file of your time at Twitter.

To see what would occur, I requested a obtain of my Twitter account on a Friday at 4PM and acquired discover that it was out there at about 4PM on Sunday. It wasn’t precisely the 24 hours promised however was inside an affordable time contemplating what number of requests the service is probably going getting today.

I used to be despatched an electronic mail with a hyperlink; as soon as I’d proved my identification with my password and an emailed code, I used to be introduced again to the archive web page, the place I may now obtain a 303MB zip file (YMMV right here, after all).

The zip file incorporates two folders: one labeled “belongings” and one labeled “information” — the latter is the place all of the tweets, media, and so forth. reside.

You additionally get a separate HTML file labeled “Your archive.html” that may open in your browser and which gives a proof of what was simply downloaded, together with what number of tweets, blocked accounts, and different information is included. An introductory paragraph within the heart of the web page contains two extra hyperlinks which may be helpful: the primary results in a separate HTML-coded record of all the pieces that you just’ve downloaded with linked file names, whereas the opposite opens a textual content doc that gives explanations of every file.

On the left of the HTML web page, there are hyperlinks labeled tweets, likes, direct messages, and so forth. You possibly can click on on every to see the contents of your archival recordsdata within the heart. That is by far the simplest strategy to learn your previous tweets and different content material. There’s a search field on the proper, together with filters that allow you to kind and filter by date or entry kind.

If you happen to go into the precise folders, you will note that the textual content entries are in JSON (.js) format, which implies that they’re in readable textual content that features the related code. The benefit to that is you can learn the file utilizing virtually any phrase processor or notes app; the drawback is that you need to get previous all of the explanatory code, which not solely contains the precise textual content of the tweet but in addition information on what number of likes or retweets it obtained, what URLs it incorporates, and a code quantity that may be matched to any media that it was printed with (and which you’ll discover in a separate folder). Nevertheless, if you’re in search of that information, it’s there for the discovering.

In different phrases, if for any purpose you may not entry them (or don’t wish to entry them on-line), you now have your tweets, your tweeted media, and your DMs saved to your personal reference.

Replace November 14th, 2022, 3:50PM ET: This text was initially printed on November eleventh, 2022, and has been up to date to explain what the Twitter obtain seems to be like.