Twitter Archive: Download and Read Your X Data

X (formerly Twitter) lets you download a copy of the data tied to your account. Your Twitter archive is the record to reach for when X search misses an old post, or before you delete posts or leave. We checked X's help pages and settings in October 2026.

What the Twitter archive is (and what it isn't)

X describes the archive as "a snapshot of your X information, starting with your first post." Its download guide lists your profile, posts, Direct Messages, attached images, videos and GIFs, follower and following lists, address book, Lists, the interests X has inferred about you and the ads you've seen or engaged with, "and more," as HTML and JSON files.

If you searched for a tweet archive, check it's what you need:

• It's only your account. You can't request one for someone else. For another account's old public posts, use our guide on how to search tweets on X.
• It's not a Wayback Machine snapshot. The Wayback Machine keeps public pages someone saved; your archive is a private export sent only to you.
• It's a moment in time. The README X puts inside the archive (a copy published in January 2024) says it "reflects the state of the account at the time when the archive was created." Later posts need a new request.

How to download your Twitter archive (web, iOS, Android)

Confirm your email address first. X sends the link there and wants it confirmed before you request your Twitter data download. Every route then needs a code (plus your password on the web), Request data, and a wait for X's email.

On the web

1. Click More, then Settings and privacy, then Your account.
2. Click Download an archive of your data and enter your password.
3. Click Send code and enter the code from your email or texts; in our October 2026 check, x.com showed a "Verify it's you" screen here.
4. Click Request data.

On iPhone and Android

1. Tap your profile icon (or the menu icon on some Android phones), then Settings and privacy.
2. Tap Account, then Your X data under Data and permissions.
3. Tap Send code, enter the code, then tap Request data next to X under Download your data.

When the email arrives

X says preparing the archive "may take a few days." When it's ready, you get an email and, if you have the app, a push notification. To download your X archive, click Download in the email while logged in to X in the browser you download with; the settings screen offers it too. X doesn't say how long the link lasts, so download it the same day.

What's inside the .zip

Unzip it first. X's data help page says the download includes a file called "Your archive" that lets you see your data "in a desktop web browser." Flemish archive institute meemoo describes the .zip (updated October 2025) as an assets folder, a data folder and a central Your archive.html file.

"Your archive" is the friendly view, but X's README says it "only includes a subset of the data" and "only works if the archive is less than 50GB." For everything else, open the data folder. The table below uses descriptions from that January 2024 README copy; names and contents can shift between exports.

File or folder	What it holds
tweets.js	Your posts "which have not been deleted," edited versions included
tweets_media	Images, videos and GIFs from your posts
deleted-tweets.js	Posts deleted in the last 14 days that X hasn't purged yet
direct-messages.js	Your one-to-one DMs (group chats sit in direct-messages-group.js)
like.js	IDs and text of the posts you liked
follower.js, following.js	Account IDs of your followers and the accounts you follow
account.js	Your email, username and when the account was created
ip-audit.js	Login times and the IP addresses used

X's README calls these "machine-readable JSON files with a .js extension." Any text editor opens them.

How to search your archive for old tweets

When X search misses a post you know you wrote, the Twitter archive tweets file, tweets.js, holds every post you haven't deleted, on your own computer:

1. Use the built-in viewer. Open "Your archive" in a desktop browser. Meemoo's guide notes it has search and filter functions, which is enough for most lookups.
2. Search the raw file. Open data/tweets.js in a text editor and press Ctrl+F (Cmd+F on a Mac) for a phrase you remember. Each post's text sits next to its date and its numeric ID.
3. Open the post on X. Put that ID into x.com/yourhandle/status/<ID> to see the live post, if it still exists.
4. Trace a photo or video. The README says each file in tweets_media carries the numeric ID of its post in its filename. Search tweets.js for that number to find the post it belongs to.

The archive is offline, so it isn't affected by X search's ranking, safe-search filters or index gaps.

Keep it safe: DMs, personal data and third-party uploads

Treat the .zip like a passport scan. It holds your private messages, your email address, login IPs, your address book and the interests X has inferred about you. A few habits help:

• Store it offline or encrypted. Keep it in a password-protected folder or on an encrypted drive.
• Share the least you can. Before handing the archive to anyone, delete the files they don't need. Meemoo's guide suggests removing account-creation-ip.js, ip-audit.js, device-token.js, block.js, mute.js and the deleted-tweet files before sharing an archive.
• Read before you upload. Check what a site keeps and for how long; our guide to deleting tweets on X covers how to check a tool that asks for your archive.
• Download before you leave. If you're closing the account, get the archive first; our guide on how to delete your X account walks through the order.