March 29, 2024

How to Delete ALL your Tweets

The traditional way of deleting your tweets was to simply scroll down your account wall and delete them one by one. This was an easy albeit tedious solution to tweet removal.

However, this particular option was held to only your most recent 3200 tweets as 3200 is all that Twitter saves to and can show on your timeline.

So every tweet I’ve tweeted prior to 3,200 has already been taken care of?

Sadly, no. This meant that anything prior to the most immediate 3200 was still fair game for anyone doing a search using your @username or specific keywords. The only way to access these particular tweets for deletion was understanding the Twitter API and using scripts or the purchase of a third-party tweet scrubbing service.

These same options are still incredibly useful, but for those who would rather save a few pennies on cleaning up theirTwitter archive, there is now an easier, readily available do-it-yourself option.

In only the last year Twitter has finally provided the option to track down and remove any and all of your most embarrassing tweets, retweets, and mentions from your account. Though still not necessarily a quick option, it will allow you to search and remove individual tweets that would otherwise cause issues for you and your brand further down the road. Especially now that Twitter has decided to hold your old tweets hostage behind a paywall for their API, this may be the only way to remove tweets for free in the foreseeable future.

Backup Before You Delete

If you’re planning to go ahead with your desire to delete some or all of your tweets, it may be in your best interest to download a copy of your tweet archive. The archive houses all of your tweets since the dawn of time and may prove useful somewhere down the road for one reason or another. In order to do this:

  1. Log in to your Twitter account with your credentials and head to your account’s settings. This is located in the top right corner displayed by your avatar. Left-click the avatar/image and scroll down to Settings and privacy.
  2. Select Account from the left-side column and in the right-side column scroll down and click “Request your archive”.
  3. You should see a pop-up that displays “We’ve received your request! ” which asks that you be patient as they gather all the info and send it to you via your Twitter registered email.

Using the Advanced Search Filters

This feature allows you to find all posts and remove them one by one. You’ll be able to focus on all of the tweets and retweets that you want to be removed.

  1. Log in to Twitter with the account and visit the Advanced Search option. You can also follow this link
  2. There are plenty of search filters that will allow you to search tweets by word(s), phrase(s) or even hashtag(s). You even have the option to do so in a plethora of different languages as well as words you want to be omitted from the search.
  3. Once you’ve provided an entry or entries to the boxes provided, enter your Twitter @username in the “From These Accounts” box under the People category. You may also include retweets that use the entry or entries provided by putting a check in the “Include Retweets” checkbox.
  4. After allthe entries are typed in, click theSearchbutton.
  5. The tweets that are pulled will be determined by the criteria you entered. At this point, simply click on Delete beneath each post you wish to have removed from your timeline. You will have to delete each tweet one by one as there is still no Twitter provided option for bulk deletion as declared in their Help Center. “Wedo not provide a way to bulk-delete tweets. You can only delete Tweets manually, one by one. ”
Removal By Date

If you happen to have a memory that prefers numbers to words, you can find the tweets targetted for deletion using the Advanced Search option to filter your tweets by date. This includes all of those tweets that you let slip prior to the immediate 3200 that are visible on your timeline. How to delete tweets by date:

  1. While inAdvanced Search, scroll down tothe Dates section located just below the Places section. Enter the dates you wish to search into the From and To sections.
  2. Type in your @username into the appropriate box and click the Search button.
  3. Shown are the tweets you’ve posted between the provided dates entered. At this point, simply click on Delete beneath each post you wish to have removed from your timeline. Similar to the walkthrough above, you’ll need to delete each entry one by one.
Mentioned Accounts

Perhaps you’ve been a bit harsh or overcritical toward a person or product in the past and wish to remove the toxicity from your timeline. The Advanced Search filter can also help you target those specific tweets with the “Mentioning these accounts” option.

  1. Enter the @username of the person or product you want to search into the “Mentioning these accounts” box as well as your @username into the “From these accounts” box.
  2. Click the Search button, scroll through the timeline presented, and get to deletingthose posts.
Third Party Twitter Scrubbers

Isn’t the title of this article supposed to be “How to delete ALL tweets? ” Technically, with the above methods, you can rid yourself of all tweets. It may not be the most time efficient way to do so but it does get the job done. If you’re looking for more of a one-time, bulk deletion option to rid yourself of any lingering embarrassment in tweet form, the Third Party services are still readily available. This too holds true for those of you well versed in API and running scripts.

Twitter states that the use of third-party deletion services is against their ToS. Seeing as they don’t offer up an alternate solution, you may just have to let your rebel flag fly.

A couple recommended Third Party services to look into are:

Cardigan

In order to get the service to work, you’ll need to provide them your Twitter archive. By using their service you are authorizing them to infiltrate your Twitter on your behalf and scour all tweets for potential deletion. Some tweeters may have an issue with this but Cardigan is one of the best services for tweet deletion available and will bulk delete tweets even beyond the most recent 3200. How it works:

  1. Cardigan will fetch your tweets, which could take some time depending on how busy the site currently is.
  2. Once finished with the search, you’ll be able to scroll through your tweets and select which ones (or all) you’d like to delete. Click on a tweet to select it as a candidate for deletion. Clicking on it again will unselect it.
  3. Cardigan supplies similar filter parameters as Twitter’s Advance Search by allowing you to restrict deletions to tweets, retweets, replies, specific words and phrases, hashtags, and usernames. You can also filter them by Newest to oldest, Oldest to newest, Most to least retweets, and Most to least favorites. Unlike Twitter, they offer a “Delete All” button next to the “Delete Selected” button that will delete all the tweets that currently match your filters.
  4. After confirming that you wish to proceed, the selected tweets are uploaded to Cardigan’s servers and permanently removed.

Again, this process can take some time depending on the business of the site and the number of tweets selected for deletion.

Tweet Delete

Possibly the most popular option, Tweet Delete will help you remove those 3200 visible tweets in bulk for free. You’re also able to set up an ongoing schedule for deleting tweets at specified intervals. Simply log in to your Twitter account while on their site, select your automatic deletion schedule, and click on the Activate TweetDelete button. There is also the option to remove all tweets in bulk by checking the box next to “Delete all of my existing tweets before activating this schedule”.

Tweet Eraser

A paid service that features more robust options is Tweet Eraser. The $6. 99 standard package gives you the option of importing unlimited archived tweets, for multiple Twitter accounts (max of 3), without a reoccurring charge. If for any reason you wish to save deleted tweets to your PC, you can always go for the $9. 99 package which also allows for unlimited Twitter account and search filters.

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