How to Download Twitter Archive
How to request your X archive, how long it takes, what the ZIP actually contains, and why it is the only complete copy of your history.
Request path
Web :: From Settings and privacy on the left side, go to Your account -> Download an archive of your data. This is the screen where it launches the only official copy that X will ever produce for you. It is the thorough transfer of account: all posts, responses, DMs, likes, follows and a pile of logs most never check. The request is free. You make it once. Before you delete posts or nuke the account, do it, because a live timeline will never provide as much depth and stop scrolling long before of all your oldest material.
On the phone it exists as a first and final destination. Go to your profile, open the menu and follow Settings and privacy > Your account > Download an archive of your data. The labels correspond to the desktop path. No new mobile archive and no new request type. It doesn't matter which device you submitted the request with, one request covers all accounts.
Password confirmation
It requests your current password first, from the download screen! Enter it and continue. X will then send a verification code to an email or phone already registered to the account. Enter that code on the same screen, then hit Request archive. Request a new one from that page, do not start over from Settings if the code expires. No archive job is enqueued until the password and the code are accepted.
Stay on that webpage until the confirmation comes up. If you close the tab before this message and it appears not to have started the job. The browser doesn't have to be kept open after the request is accepted. The work happens on X's side. You won't have progress bar within Settings. The next signal is that a notification, an email and not a spinning wheel on the download screen.
Processing wait
Most accounts wrap up in a few hours. So, a big one can take an entire day. However, the wait is not something you can reduce in the app. While one request is running, do not do a second request. Your second click does not make anything faster, it only makes unclear which file you are waiting for!
You can utilize the time you wait over deciding where does the ZIP on arrival will reside. It's big enough that a casual Downloads folder is not a good home for it. Choose a disk or a folder that you expect to have five years down the road. The archive contains a record at the instant X completed building it. This will not update later on. This file does not include any data you post by deleting after the job starts.
Ready notification
When the archive is ready X sends an app notification and email. Go back to the same Download an archive of your data screen and download from there as ZIP. This link is only available in a small window. If you ignore the email and the notification, your link expires, and his again restarting request from password and code.
Do this in a machine you have control of — Download the file Do not open this link on a shared/computer you have borrowed. The ZIP Kiersey Clemons — Zip is an all-in account, not a Cliff Notes public cutline. Do not alter the original ZIP once you have placed the file to disk. You can copy it, however, you cannot rename the internal files if you want the offline viewer to run.
Zip structure
The download is a single ZIP. It includes a Your archive page that you can access in a browser, and a data folder loaded with JavaScript files. This is the offline viewer that should show up on your page. Data folder is the raw export. You do not need additional software to extract it. You can use the regular unzip tool from your computer.
Do not move the viewer page and relative paths of data folder you unpacked. Those JavaScript files are being read by the page out of the data folder. When the folder is not present, if you move the page, your posts will never load into the viewer. If your only concern is having a backup and never plan to browse, keep the ZIP sealed in storage. Unzip it once and work from that copy if you are going to search or feed the file into TweetSweep.
Offline viewer
Load the Your archive page in your own browser from anywhere on your machine. Nothing is uploaded. You can run the page locally and has full access to browse/search through the entire posting history, even of posts too old for X app to scroll back that far. Even if you are not leaving the platform, that is a very practical reason to download the archive. The live product does not display the early years in a single listing.
This way you can use the viewer to confirm that the whole file is there before you delete anything publicly. Search for a post which you know is very old Open a thread that you recall from years past. If they do, your export worked. If you just want a readable copy the viewer is all you need. No third-party converter is required for you to read your own posts. You also do not need a server of cloud share for viewing unzipped folder.
Hidden records
1- The data folder contains more than just tweets. There are direct messages in clear text. Likes, the list of accounts you follow, the list of accounts following you back, ad clicks / statement previews and your login IP history along with all those interest categories X has come to infer about you. Only open those files in case you need to. Consider the message export to be private mail, because it is. The conversations can be read by anyone who has the ZIP without your password.
Never leave the unzipped folder on a shared drive, a team Dropbox or on someone else's laptop. Well, most of the posts are probably public already, but direct messages, IP history and inferred interests aren even. When emailing the ZIP to yourself, create an account that is only accessible to you. Then, you can protect it by encrypting the volume or archive file. The data is not password-protected by the viewer. The pitfall is wherever you put the ZIP.
Deletion planning
The most affordable way of planning a deletion pass is through the archive. TweetSweep runs on the archive that you've already downloaded and presents history in a calendar format. An option to determine the years you want to store and discard other years without requesting live timeline reload of account X stops a full timeline sync at the 3,200 post ceiling. The archive does not. Which is the purpose behind filing first, cleaning later.
Run point TweetSweep to the unzipped archive rather than a live scrape. The calendar view is derived from the posts that are already in the ZIP,so you avoid refetching material X will never give way past that ceiling. Choose to keep in a range on the calendar, then execute that deletion for all posts you flagged. Preserve original ZIP after cleanup It is the snapshot of what was on account as of day X when you wrote this file, even posts that later are deleted from the live profile.
Later, if you need another copy, simply request a new archive the same way. Each file is a new snapshot. The old ZIP does not update. If the sync gap matters to you, store both. The steps on your download screen do not change: Settings & privacy; Your account; Download an archive of your data, password, code, Request archive then wait for the notification and pull the ZIP before the link also runs out.