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Learn how to get, use, and understand your Twitter archive
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This wikiHow guide teaches you how to request, download, and browse your archive on X, formerly known as Twitter. The process is easy, but it can take 24 hours or more for X to generate the necessary files. Your X archive is a ZIP file that contains all of your activity since signing up.
Quick Steps
- Open your X settings.
- Go to More > Settings and privacy > Your account > Download an archive of your data .
- Request your archive, then download it once available (usually after 24 hours).
- Unzip the archive ZIP file.
- Open the HTML file in your web browser if you still have an X account.
- Open the data folder and view the JavaScript files to see your archive.
Steps
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Go to x.com in a web browser. You can request an archive of all of your tweets, messages, and media you've shared on X using any computer, phone, or tablet.
- If you're not already signed in to X, enter your login details to sign in now.
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Open your menu and click Settings and privacy . If you're using a computer or tablet, click or tap the More option with three horizontal dots in the left panel. If you're using a phone, tap your profile photo at the top-left corner.
- If you don't see the menu on the left, click or tap your profile photo at the top-left corner to open it.
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Select Your account . This displays some account-specific settings and actions.
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Click Download an archive of your data . This will prompt X to ask for you to verify your identity. You must enter your X password, then enter a verification code that was sent to your email. [1] X Research source
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Click Request archive . Once you choose this option, your archive request will be sent to X. It can take 24 hours or more to process your archive request. When your archive is ready to download, you will receive a notification on X as well as receive an email with instructions.
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Download your archive. When you receive a notification and/or email from X stating that your archive is ready for download, you can download it from the same area at which you placed the request. You'll want to use a computer to do the download and manage the archive, as the file can be quite large. To download:
- Go to x.com .
- Click More and select Settings and privacy.
- Click Your account .
- Click Download an archive of your data .
- Click Download archive .
- Choose a location to save the ZIP File and click Save to start the download. To make things simple, save the archive file to your default Downloads folder, or to your desktop.
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Unzip the archive file. The file you downloaded has a long name containing many letters and numbers, beginning with the word "twitter" and ending with ".zip." Here's how to unzip it:
- If you're using Windows, right-click the ZIP file and select Extract all . Then, choose a folder to extract the files to and select Extract .
- If you're using a Mac, double-click the ZIP file to immediately unzip it. This places a new folder with the same name in the current location.
- Note: If you're on a Mac and using Safari, you may notice that the ZIP file only has a README in it. This is a common issue when downloading your X archive with Safari. To work around this problem, download your archive with a different browser (such as Firefox or Chrome).
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Open the file called Your archive.html in your X archive folder. This opens a special HTML file containing the details of your archive in your default web browser. When it loads, the file will look like a website. Note: You can only use the HTML file if you're logged in to X. If you deleted your X account, you'll need to use the files within the data folder to view your archive.
- If you downloaded a version of your archive prior to 2021, you may not find a Your archive.html inside. X stopped providing a web file in their downloads for a period of time, which made it difficult to browse archives. Now, as long as your archive is 50 GB or smaller (it's very, very rare to have an archive larger than that), this file will be included.
- If your archive is larger than 50 GB, you can use a free tool called the X archive browser . On that website, click Download ZIP in the upper-right corner to download the ZIP to your computer, and then unzip the file. Inside the new folder, you'll find a file called "index.html." Drag this file into the data folder that's inside your downloaded, unzipped archive. [2] X Research source Then, double-click index.html in that folder to view your archive in a handy, but barebones, viewer.
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Click the Account tab to view your archived account details. This option is in the left panel. Several new tabs will expand at the top of the page.
- Click the Profile tab at the top to see what was on your X profile at the time of download, including your followers and who you are following.
- Click Connected applications to view all apps you've given permission to access some of your X data.
- Click Contacts to see a list of contacts you've uploaded to X from your phone or tablet.
- Click Sessions to see when your account was accessed by other apps.
- Click Account access history to see your entire login history.
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Click the Tweets tab in the left panel to view your tweets. This displays your tweets similarly to how you'd see them on your X profile. You can also use the Replies and Retweets tabs at the top to see the information captured at the time of the download.
- To search your tweets, use the "Search tweets" bar at the top-right corner of the page. You can filter the search results using the "Search filters" panel.
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Click the Likes tab in the left panel to see all the tweets you've liked. Every tweet you've ever clicked the heart on will appear on this page.
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Click the Direct Messages tab to view all of your DMs. This option is also in the left panel, and the resulting DM list will appear similarly to how it appears on X. You can search through your DMs using the "Search Messages" bar at the top.
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Click the Safety tab to view your muted and blocked accounts. Also, on the left panel, this tab displays any account that was muted or blocked at the time you requested, and your archive will appear here.
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Click the Personalization tab to see what X knows about you. You'll see this toward the bottom of the left panel. Here, you'll find several tabs at the top with different information X uses to determine demographic information for advertising purposes.
- The Interests tab displays a list of things X thinks you are interested in based on your activity.
- Advertiser lists tells you which of X's advertisers has added you to their audiences.
- The Location tab lists locations associated with your account.
- Saved Searches displays any of the searches you've saved on X.
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Click the Ads tab on the left panel to see ads you've been shown. All of the ads X places in your feed will appear on this tab. You can click Show details under any ad to see who the target audience for the ad was, and why it was shown to you.
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Click the Lists tab on the left to view your X lists. If you've created, subscribed, or have been added to any X list, those lists will appear here.
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Click the Moments tab on the left to view all of your X Moments. If you've used X's Moments tool to curate any Moments, you will find them here.
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View a list of all files in your archive. First, click the X icon at the top-left corner of your archive to return to the main page. You'll see a section at the top center that states that the page you've been browsing is "not all the data from the archive," and that you can click this folder to view additional files. If you click that link, you'll see a file tree containing all of the files you can open in your archive. This includes photo and video files you shared in DMs, fleets, moments, in tweets, and on your profile.
- Click any of the folders containing the word media to see all of the photo and video files of that type. For example, if you click tweet_media , you'll see a list of image files you've shared in tweets. Click any of these files to display the image.
- The files ending in .js are JavaScript files that may look a bit jumbled or confusing on the page. Still, you can comb through these files to see what's available.
- You can click the file called README.txt on this page to read about the different types of files included in your archive, including the ones ending with the .js extension.
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1Open the data folder in your X archive folder. If you have already deleted your X account by the time you're looking at your archive, the HTML archive file may not work properly. In order to view your archive, you'll need to open the "data" folder inside of the archive folder.
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2Open the README file. This file includes detailed instructions on how to navigate the files within your X archive. However, all of the files have descriptive names, and the files themselves are easily readable despite being JavaScript files. However, it's still a good idea to read through the README before continuing.
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3Check the folders ending in _media to view your media. This includes profile pictures, media included in your tweets, media from your DMs, and even media from deleted tweets. Browse these folders to find the images, videos, and GIFs you posted on your X account.
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4Open a JavaScript file to see your data. Each file has a descriptive name (i.e., "followers" shows a list of all the users who followed you), but the README file will go over what each file includes.
- You can open JavaScript files in Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac).
- Windows: Right-click the JavaScript file and choose Open with > Notepad .
- Mac: Ctrl+click the JavaScript file and choose Get info . Next to "Open with," choose TextEdit. Then, open the file.
- Despite the fact that the files are written in JavaScript, the files will be easy to read. You don't need any special programs or even any coding knowledge to read these files. For example, if you open the "followers" file, you'll see a label that says "accountId" and a label that says "userLink" for each person who followed you. While you might not know who the person is by their account ID, if you copy and paste the URL after the "userLink" label into your browser, it will bring you to that user's X page.
- You can open JavaScript files in Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac).
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Community Q&A
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QuestionICGILTop Answerer
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QuestionCan I see how many tweets I have deleted from my account?ICGILTop AnswererNo. Deleted tweets cannot be counted.
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QuestionCan I see old DMs with my Twitter archive?Community AnswerAs of right now, no, I don't think this is possible.
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About This Article
Article Summary
X
1. Request your archive from Twitter.
2. When notified that your archive is ready, download the ZIP file.
3. Unzip the archive and open the new folder.
4. Double-click the file called Your archive.html
.
5. Browse the tabs to see what's in your archive.
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Thanks to all authors for creating a page that has been read 158,191 times.
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