Do you ever revisit your outdated tweets? Twitter has been round since 2006 — in the event you had been an early adopter, you’d in all probability be stunned to see among the content material you as soon as thought was cool and acceptable to share.
Reviewing your outdated tweets will assist you hold your model picture in examine, and it needs to be a part of your common social media audits.
On this submit, we go over easy methods to seek for outdated tweets and delete them.
Bonus: Obtain the free 30-day plan to develop your Twitter following quick, a each day workbook that may assist you set up a Twitter advertising routine and monitor your development, so you may present your boss actual outcomes after one month.
Why is preserving monitor of outdated tweets essential?
If, like me, you joined Twitter in its very early years with no concept what it was actually about, you is likely to be questioning easy methods to discover outdated tweets. What did it’s important to say within the halcyon days of 2007? Are irrelevant or probably embarrassing tweets lingering in your timeline?
Having fun with the free wi-fi at YVR.
— Christina Newberry (@ckjnewberry) March 5, 2009
Singing the praises of free wifi at a serious worldwide airport (nevermind calling it “wi-fi”) appears slightly goofy from the totally related days of 2022.
In fact, this random tweet isn’t going to get me in any hassle. But when my timeline had been affected by this sort of factor, I’d in all probability need to go in and clear it up. It may additionally be a good suggestion to skinny out a few of my overzealous grammar assaults and intensive retweeting from the early 2010s.
We’re not advocates of cancel tradition, or of hiding out of your previous. However, realistically, there are many causes you’d need to delete outdated content material out of your Twitter timeline.
Perhaps you began with a private Twitter account and now need to use it for enterprise functions. Perhaps you’re job searching and know potential employers will probably be checking you out on social. Or perhaps you mentioned some issues once you had been younger that you’ve got grown as much as perceive weren’t so sensible.
Preserve studying to learn the way to seek for outdated tweets and delete them. Remember that all of those strategies delete your tweets from Twitter itself and from retweets and quote tweets created with the trendy Twitter choices. If somebody copy and pasted a part of your tweet (like we did for old style RTs and MTs) or screencapped it, the content material is there to remain.
Tips on how to discover outdated tweets: 4 strategies
Technique 1: Twitter superior search
Twitter’s superior search function is the best strategy to search outdated tweets and doesn’t require you to present any third-party apps entry to your account.
1. Log in to your Twitter account and go to Twitter’s superior search web page.
2. Beneath the Accounts subheading, enter your username into the From these accounts subject.
3. Enter no matter data you may keep in mind concerning the tweet(s) you’re in search of. This might be a key phrase or phrase, a hashtag, an account you replied to or talked about, and/or a particular date vary.
The date choice choices return to 2006, when Twitter first launched.
4. Click on Search. Within the search outcomes, you’ll see a listing of high tweets from that interval.
5. To see each tweet from that interval, click on on the Newest tab. This could return a listing of each tweet you despatched between the from and till dates you specified, in reverse chronological order.
You too can use the tabs throughout the highest of the display to search for tweets that comprise pictures or movies.
Technique 2: Obtain an entire archive of your tweets
Downloading an archive of your tweets every so often is sweet social media apply generally. It’s additionally an effective way to go looking your complete report of outdated tweets. Right here’s easy methods to see outdated tweets utilizing the Twitter archive:
1. Go to https://twitter.com/settings/account
2. Beneath Your Account click on on Obtain an archive of your knowledge. When prompted, re-enter your password and select a verification technique.
3. Beneath Twitter knowledge, click on Request archive.
3. It will probably take a few days for Twitter to arrange your archive. When it’s prepared, you’ll get a push notification and an e-mail to let you recognize.
4. Click on on the notification to obtain your archive. Or, go to again to https://twitter.com/settings/account and click on on Obtain an archive of your knowledge underneath Your Account.
5. Click on Obtain archive to get a .zip file of all of your Twitter exercise, together with all of your outdated tweets.
6. Upon getting the .zip file in your desktop, open the file known as Your archive.html. You’ll see a abstract of all of your exercise on Twitter. To see all of your outdated tweets, click on Tweets.
You’ll see a listing of all of your outdated tweets, in reverse chronological order. You should use the search field and filters on the precise of the web page to slender your search, or use the tabs throughout the highest to particularly see your replies and retweets.
Every tweet in your downloaded archive features a hyperlink to the stay tweet on Twitter for simple entry.
Technique 3: Use an app to see your outdated tweets on one scrollable web page
When you don’t need to wait to obtain your complete Twitter archive, right here’s easy methods to lookup outdated tweets utilizing a third-party service. Choices like AllMyTweets let you see your 3200(-ish) newest tweets nearly instantaneously in simply scrollable type.
The 3200 tweets restrict is imposed by Twitter’s API. When you tweet as soon as a day, that 3200-tweet view will take you again almost 9 years. However in the event you’re like Hootsuite and take part in plenty of Twitter chats, it is going to in all probability take you again lower than two years.
Nonetheless, it’s a very good place to begin your seek for outdated tweets.
1. Go to AllMyTweets and log in utilizing your Twitter account. You’ll should grant AllMyTweets entry to your Twitter account, however you may all the time revoke this entry later.
2. When you’re logged in , you may lookup your personal outdated tweets or another person’s. Enter the username you’d wish to lookup outdated tweets for.
4. Scroll by means of the tweets, which seem in reverse-chronological order. Or use the search possibility in your browser to search for a particular key phrase, phrase, and even emoji.
Technique 4: Use the Wayback Machine
What if the tweet you’re in search of has been deleted, and also you don’t have entry to the Twitter archive for the account it was despatched from?
You might need some luck trying to find it utilizing the Wayback Machine. It doesn’t archive particular person tweets, nevertheless it does have screenshots of widespread Twitter pages from particular dates.
Be aware: This simply goes to indicate you that deleting tweets isn’t a foolproof strategy to purge them from the web.
Right here’s easy methods to seek for outdated tweets utilizing the Wayback Machine:
1. Go to the Wayback Machine. Within the search bar on the high, enter http://twitter.com/[username], changing [username] with the account you need to search.
2. Click on Browse Historical past. The Wayback Machine will current you with each screenshot it has of that person’s Twitter web page, organized by 12 months and day.
3. Choose which 12 months you’d wish to see tweets from within the timeline on the high of the display. Then click on on a date bubble.
4. The Wayback Machine will present you a screenshot of the person’s Twitter web page precisely because it appeared on that day. Most aged screenshots of Twitter will comprise the primary 20 or so tweets that appeared on the web page that day, however received’t allow you to scroll to see older tweets. For instance, right here’s how Hootsuite’s Twitter web page seemed on August 24, 2014:
Tips on how to delete outdated tweets
Bear in mind, as we simply illustrated with the Wayback Machine, it’s form of not possible to delete one thing as soon as it hits the web. That mentioned, you may delete your Twitter content material from Twitter, which definitely makes them a lot more durable for somebody to search out with out actually digging.
Technique 1: Delete outdated tweets manually
If you wish to delete outdated tweets instantly on Twitter, you’ll have to take action one by one. There’s no native choice to delete a number of tweets. Right here’s the way it works.
- In your profile web page, or utilizing your Twitter archive, find the tweet you need to delete.
- Click on the three dots (extra) icon on the high proper of the tweet.
- Click on Delete.
And right here’s easy methods to delete one thing you Retweeted:
- In your profile web page, scroll to the merchandise you Retweeted.
- Hover your cursor over the Retweet icon.
- Click on Undo Retweet.
Technique 2: Mass delete outdated tweets
As a substitute of trying to find particular objects in your timeline, it’d generally be simpler to mass delete tweets.
Like we mentioned above, there’s no native possibility to do that inside Twitter, however there are apps that may let you delete outdated tweets in bulk.
Among the finest choices embody:
- TweetDelete, which lets you mass delete tweets based mostly on how outdated they’re or based mostly on particular key phrases or phrases.
- TweetDeleter, which lets you delete outdated tweets based mostly on key phrases, date, sort, and media. A bonus of TweetDeleter is that it retains your outdated tweets in a personal archive, so that they’re faraway from Twitter however nonetheless accessible to you.
- Semiphemeral means that you can mass delete outdated tweets whereas preserving those who have a particular degree of engagement. You too can choose particular person tweets to save lots of from deletion.
Utilizing any third-party app requires you to grant the app entry to your Twitter account. It’s a good suggestion to revoke that entry when you’ve achieved all the things it’s worthwhile to do.
Technique 3: Delete outdated tweets mechanically
Perhaps you like to retweet issues however don’t need these tweets to stay in your timeline eternally. Or perhaps you solely need to hold tweets in your timeline that hit a sure degree of engagement.
On this case, an automated delete service is an effective possibility. The entire mass deletion instruments above additionally let you set ongoing duties that may delete tweets mechanically over time.
For instance, right here’s how the continued Twitter deletion duties setup appears in Semiphemeral.
Supply: micahflee.com
Technique 4: The (nearly) nuclear possibility
WARNING: This technique means that you can hold your username, however you’ll lose all of your followers. That is really an account reset. Use this technique solely as a final resort.
When you actually need a recent begin on Twitter, you may utterly wipe your account and begin over. To take action, you’ll have to create a brand new account with a brief username, delete your outdated account, after which do a username switcheroo.
This technique will not be for the faint of coronary heart! However in the event you actually need to scrap all the things, right here’s the way it works.
- Create a brand new Twitter account with a brand new (non permanent) username.
- Delete your current Twitter account. (Yikes! Actually. We imply it once we say this technique isn’t any joke.) As soon as the account is deleted your username turns into accessible, so do that subsequent half quick.
- Change the title of your new account with the non permanent username to your earlier username:
- From the profile web page, click on the three dots (extra) icon.
- Click on Settings and privateness.
- Click on Your account.
- Click on Account data and ensure your password,
- Click on Username, then enter your authentic username.
That’s it. You now have a brand-new Twitter account with 0 tweets – and 0 followers! – however the slate is wiped completely clear.
Use Hootsuite to handle your Twitter accounts alongside all of your different social media profiles. From a single dashboard, you may monitor your opponents, develop your followers, schedule tweets, and analyze your efficiency. Attempt it free as we speak.
Do it higher with Hootsuite, the all-in-one social media toolkit. Keep up to the mark, develop, and beat the competitors.