How to download a copy of your Twitter data
Unless you have been living under the rock, you must have heard that Elon Musk is indeed buying Twitter for a cool $44 billion. The news has divided people primarily into two groups, one who is in support of the takeover and the other who is against it. People belonging to the latter group have even thought about leaving the platform altogether. If you are one of those who are thinking about deleting Twitter, it makes sense that you download a copy of your Twitter data before bidding the app farewell.
An offline copy of the data will give you an opportunity to revisit those memories which would be gone permanently otherwise. Even if you do not want to quit the platform, it will be an interesting way to see the amount of data Twitter has stored about you. This is likely to be a lot if you are using the social media network for years.
Twitter says the data will include “your profile information, your Tweets, your Direct Messages, your Moments, your media (images, videos, and GIFs you’ve attached to Tweets, Direct Messages, or Moments), a list of your followers, a list of accounts that you are following, your address book, Lists that you’ve created, are a member of or follow, interest and demographic information that we have inferred about you, information about ads that you’ve seen or engaged with on Twitter, and more.”
Download a copy of your Twitter data:
- Log into your Twitter account using a web browser.
- Click More from the list of options on the left sidebar.
- Click Settings and privacy to proceed.
- Click Your account followed by the Download an archive of your data option.
- Enter your password and the verification code sent to your registered email address/phone number to authenticate yourself.
- Once verified successfully, click the Request Archive button.
You can follow the same steps on the Twitter app if you want to request the archive through the phone. Twitter will take 24 hours or more before sharing a copy of your account data. It will notify you through in-app notification and email once the data is available for download. It will take you to Twitter settings where you will see a new download option. Clicking this new option will begin the download process and it will be accessible as a .zip file.