Tips on how to delete your Twitter historical past

Over the previous couple of months, Elon Musk’s X, which was previously referred to as Twitter, has been a effervescent cauldron of strange advertising decisions, continuous upheavals, and weird overflows of testosterone.

Not that Twitter has ever been calm waters. Earlier than Musk, Twitter was the social media world’s most dependable double-edged sword. One minute, you have been retweeting a humorous meme account and having fun with some healthful dialogue about your present TV binge fixation, and the subsequent, you have been being buried by a harassment marketing campaign or discovering your day ruined by a thread that makes you wish to throw your laptop computer by the window.

Both means, when you’re now on X or have been ever on Twitter, it’s a good suggestion to take precautions along with your posting historical past since, even when you’ve moved on to one or more other social networks, it’s potential that any person will unearth one in every of your {old} tweets and create a firestorm with out you even being conscious it’s occurring. (And whereas it’s not essentially unhealthy to have the ability to ignore one thing like that, it’s in all probability a good suggestion to know when it’s erupting.)

So no matter whether or not you’ve minimize Twitter out of your life, the very best safety you possibly can present your self is the deletion of your Twitter historical past. Right here’s the place to begin when you’re inquisitive about nuking your timeline and maintaining future tweets from falling into the web’s vindictive void of posterity.

Earlier than you choose a technique to wipe your Twitter historical past, it’s really useful that you simply archive your tweets first. To start with, meaning you possibly can simply maintain on to the folder, within the occasion you ever wish to casually scroll again to that three-month interval once you first signed up for Twitter and all you can suppose to tweet about was breakfast and the climate and earnest hashtag use.

However the principle motive that you simply wish to archive your tweets is as a result of, when you’ve got greater than 3,200 tweets, you received’t be capable of take away them with out an archive. How come? As a result of people can solely delete particular person posts, and when you use a third-party app, Twitter will solely enable it to delete the latest 3,200 tweets. To get round that limitation, most deletion apps use your archive (or inform you easy methods to use your archive) to establish all of the older tweets you’ve amassed to allow them to do away with them.

• Go to your Twitter account and within the left-hand column, click on on Extra > Settings and Help > Settings and Privateness.
• Below the Your Account column, click on on Obtain an archive of your knowledge. It will possibly take a day or extra till you get your knowledge, so when you suppose it’s possible you’ll be in a rush to delete your Twitter knowledge, plan forward.

Ultimately, you’ll get an e-mail from Twitter inviting you to obtain your archive. It would arrive in a ZIP file, which incorporates a folder wherein you’ll discover an HTML file. Clicking on that may open a webpage in your browser window for scrolling by your whole Twitter historical past, along with an inventory of JavaScript knowledge information.

Should you solely have a couple of older tweets that you simply wish to do away with — since you discover them embarrassing, or have modified your thoughts, or don’t need your new employer tripping over them — you possibly can delete them one after the other.

• Go to your Profile web page.
• Discover the tweet that you simply wish to delete, and click on the three dots to the appropriate of the publish.
• Click on on Delete.
• A pop-up will ask when you’re certain. In case you are, click on on Delete.

There are lots of providers on the market designed that can assist you handle your Twitter historical past and wipe it clear. Some are free, and a few cost a subscription charge. None can instantly delete greater than your most up-to-date 3,200 tweets. (This is a function of Twitter’s API). Nevertheless, a lot of the apps have discovered a means of getting round it by serving to you obtain your archive (see the 1st step, above) after which utilizing the archive to, in essence, delete a specified vary of tweets that have been created earlier than these 3,200.

And even when you’ve used one in every of these to delete all of your previous tweets, it’s a good suggestion to return and test. There have been studies, including from Verge staffers, that “deleted” posts have mysteriously reappeared.

TweetDelete, top-of-the-line identified, is an internet software that allows you to each delete your Twitter historical past and set a timer for the deletion of future tweets. The free model solely deletes these most up-to-date 3,200 tweets. The corporate does supply three paid plans: a Starter plan for $5.99 a month or $35 a 12 months that may delete as much as 500 tweets a month; a Professional plan that, for $6.49 a month or $40 a 12 months, will delete as much as 3,200 tweets a month; or the Premium plan for $6.99 a month or $44 a 12 months that makes an attempt to get across the 3,200-tweet limitation by importing your Twitter knowledge file after which letting you delete a variety of particular tweets.

TweetEraser is analogous and presents comparable options — in reality, its checklist of premium options is nearly similar to that of TweetDelete, and its costs are precisely the identical besides that, as a substitute of a Starter plan, Professional plan, and Premium plan, TweetEraser presents a Newbie plan, Superior plan, and Professional plan. The one variations are that TweetEraser doesn’t supply a free model, and it claims “further quick” deletion within the Superior plan and “tremendous quick” deletion within the Professional plan.

TweetDeleter may even delete your older tweets utilizing the identical technique because the earlier two apps: by utilizing your Twitter archive to search out and delete these posts. Should you solely wish to delete sure tweets, you could find them utilizing key phrases or whether or not they’re hooked up to media. TweetDeleter presents a Commonplace plan that allows you to delete as much as 100 tweets per 30 days for $7.99 a month or $47.88 a 12 months; the Superior plan deletes as much as 3,000 posts and three,000 likes for $9.99 a month or $59.88 a 12 months, and the Limitless plan enables you to delete a limiteless variety of tweets and likes (together with suddenly) for $11.99 a month or $71.88 a 12 months.

Redact is a downloadable app for macOS, Home windows, and Linux that deletes posts from an impressively huge number of providers. The free model deletes limitless posts on Reddit and Twitter and 30 days’ price of posts from Fb and Discord. For $84 yearly, you possibly can delete a limiteless variety of posts from all of these providers; take away posts from, in accordance with Redact, over 40 providers in complete; schedule bulk deletions; and revel in beta entry to new options, amongst different options.

Replace August 18th, 2023, 8:35AM ET: This text was initially printed on July twenty sixth, 2018, and it has been up to date to mirror current modifications to Twitter / X and to tweet deleting providers.