How to See Deleted Tweets of Your Own or Others

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Learn how to recover deleted tweets that you or someone else posted

Written by Nicole Levine, MFA

Last Updated: September 17, 2024 Fact Checked

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Using the Wayback Machine

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Downloading Your Twitter Archive

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Looking for Screenshots

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Avoiding Scams

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Video

Have you ever gone to look for a tweet someone else posted and realized you couldn't find it? Or perhaps you deleted your own tweet accidentally and you're wondering if there is a way to bring it back. Unfortunately, there's no built-in way to view or recover deleted tweets of your own or of others on Twitter, but there are a few methods you can use to view deleted tweets. In this article, we'll teach you easy ways to find deleted tweets on Twitter using your computer, Android, iPhone, or iPad.

Where to See Deleted Tweets

The deleted tweet you are looking for may have been archived in the Wayback Machine. Go to archive.org/web and search for the person's X/Twitter profile URL. If found, hover over a date, then select a timestamp to view tweets from that date.

Method 1

Method 1 of 4:

Using the Wayback Machine

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Go to the Wayback Machine. The Wayback Machine - Internet Archive is a website that has archives of over 700 billion web pages, so it's possible your tweet was saved.^{[1]
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Research source}
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Search for the target Twitter URL. Type or paste the profile address of the person whose deleted tweets you're trying to find, then press Enter or Return to search. You can search for your own deleted tweets on the Wayback Machine, or you can look for deleted tweets by another user.
- For example, to find wikiHow's deleted tweets, you'd type https://twitter.com/wikiHow.
- To find your own deleted tweets, replace the part after "twitter.com/" with your own Twitter username.
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Hover over a date. A calendar view will load if the Wayback Machine has archived the URL you searched for. The dates when the website was snapshotted will be highlighted in blue.
- While the Wayback Machine has archived billions of websites, there's a chance the URL you searched for isn't archived. If nothing pops up when you search for the URL, you won't be able to search for the deleted tweet via the Wayback Machine.
- Make sure to select a date after the tweet was posted, but before it had been deleted, if possible.
Some dates will have multiple saved timestamps.
Once you've selected a timestamp, the Wayback Machine will load the Twitter page you searched for at that given date and time. If the tweet hadn't yet been deleted when the page was archived, you should find it here.

Method 2

Method 2 of 4:

Downloading Your Twitter Archive

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Navigate to your Twitter settings. Twitter keeps an archive of your data that you can download from your account settings. If you want to find your own deleted tweets, you can look through this data to see if your deleted tweet was saved.^{[2]
X
Research source} Your tweet may not be in the archive, but it's a good place to check if you are looking for your own deleted tweet. To get to your Twitter settings:
- Tap your profile photo at the top-left (in the mobile app) or click the three horizontal dots in the left panel (on a computer).
- Select Settings and Support.
- Select Settings and privacy.
It's at the top of the Settings page.
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Select Download an archive of your data.
- You will need to verify your identity to get access to your archive. Follow the on-screen instructions to do so.
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Click or tap Request archive. Once you request a copy of your archive, it will be packaged in a ZIP file, and you'll be notified when it's ready for download.
- It can take up to 24 hours for your archive to be ready for download.
- Because the ZIP file can be quite large, it'll usually be easiest to download it on your computer.
Once your archive is ready, click or tap the link in the email message from Twitter to download it. You'll then need to unzip the file to access your deleted tweets and other archived information.
This opens your Twitter archive in your default web browser.
You can now browse for your deleted tweets or use the "Search tweets" bar to search for something specific.

Method 3

Method 3 of 4:

Looking for Screenshots

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Look for screenshots. If you're trying to find a deleted tweet that was sensational, inflammatory, or controversial, someone may have captured a screenshot. This is especially true if a celebrity, politician, or some other public figure made the tweet. You can try to see if the tweet you're looking for was screenshotted and posted somewhere else.
- You can look for screenshots via Google, Bing, or any other search engine that allows you to look for images. Simply include the user's Twitter handle and some keywords from the deleted tweet to see if anything pops up.

Method 4

Method 4 of 4:

Avoiding Scams

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There are a few websites and apps that claim they can help you find old deleted tweets, but most of these are scams. Users report that using these third-party apps has resulted in malicious-looking URLs showing up in their phone calendars.