How to Search & Find Someone’s Deleted Tweets
More than a billion tweets are sent every day by users who just want to tell their stories to the world.
It’s not a secret for anyone that humankind is a social and talkative being, so sharing our thoughts with other people is entirely natural.
Nevertheless, the nature of the Twitter website sometimes pushes us to tweet tweets, forgive the redundancy, that we just want to delete after a while.
There are other scenarios in which you might want to find the Deleted Tweets of a specific Twitter account, and whatever your motivations are, we are here to help you
This complete guide will show you:
- How to see deleted tweets on Twitter;
- Different methods to find deleted tweets of a Twitter profile;
- How you can recover your own deleted tweet as a downloadable file.
Why Would Someone Want to Find Deleted Tweets?
You might be asking yourself, “why would someone want to view deleted tweets?”.
After all, deleted tweets must remain deleted, right?
Well, this isn’t always the best case.
Old tweets might contain valuable information that someone lost just because they wanted to lower their tweet counter, for instance.
Sometimes, having many tweets on a specific account can be counterproductive.
There might be similar tweets repeated a thousand times, and there are other tweets and similar posts - the thing is, deleting your old tweets is something perfectly normal that can happen to anyone.
If you don’t believe us, just take a look at Donald Trump’s deleted tweets - he surely had a reason to delete those old tweets on Twitter!
1. You Need to Recover Important Information
Perhaps you posted relevant information on past tweets, but then you decided to delete it.
We all delete tweets sometimes, so it’s totally normal.
This happens to lots of Twitter accounts, so don’t worry - you can still search deleted tweets with the alternatives we are about to show you.
2. You Need a Deleted Tweet to Make a Point
If you need a user’s deleted tweets to make a point, then you are on your right to find them.
Obviously, you won’t have it easy to see deleted tweets on Twitter, but there are still some ways to prove you are right, even if you don’t have saved tweets as an archive file.
3. Entirely Personal Reasons
Twitter has no limits.
It doesn’t matter if you want to find deleted tweets just for the sake of finding them - if you are determined to do this, then let’s do it once and for all.
4 Effective Ways to Find a Deleted Tweet
Tweets can contain images, videos, or simple text.
You don’t necessarily need to know the content of a tweet to find someone’s deleted tweets, but it’s undoubtedly a good way to start with your research.
Still, if you don’t know where to start to look for a deleted tweet, do not despair - we will guide you through the entire process.
Method #1: Use an Internet Archive Platform Such as Wayback Machine
If there’s something even close to an Internet time machine, then it’s Wayback Machine.
There’s a reason why the website name starts with Wayback - you can see a person’s tweets from the very beginning, which is really useful to achieve our goals.
You can access the website by clicking on this link.
To see deleted tweets on this tool, write the website address of Twitter in the search bar and let the machine do its tricks.
Go to the account of the person you want to retrieve the tweet from and click on “Browse History.”
You need to find the page that contains the deleted tweet.
They probably used a hot hashtag on their tweet that you might quickly identify.
This might take you a while, but eventually, you will hit the jackpot. Since you are using external database, this method works even when Twitter is not working.
Method #2: Try Google Cache
In case you want to find someone’s deleted tweets that were recently removed from the platform, then a quick Google search could help you with this.
In the Google Search bar, write “Twitter + The name of the account.” Then, select the “Cached” option in Google so you can have access to a previously cached version.
If you know the similar or exact text of the deleted tweets, then it will be a lot easier to see deleted tweets just by using almighty Google.
Method #3: Use Third-Party Apps
There are third-party apps for everything: anonymous Twitter management tools, automatic Tweet-posters, and, of course, apps to see deleted tweets.
A quick search will reveal a lot of apps to achieve this, such as SnapBird, which isn’t available anymore.
Nonetheless, there’s an inconvenience with these apps and the methods mentioned above: your account safety might be put at risk.
That’s why we recommend using these methods just as a last resort.
There you go! Finding deleted tweets is not that hard, right?
If you want to know more, just check our other social media articles in GrowFollowing.
Method #4: Recover the Archive of Your Twitter Account
Let’s say you want to find the deleted tweets that you posted some time ago.
Luckily, you can get the archived Twitter tweets in no time! The Twitter archive data is being kept as part of privacy regulations set by the government of the United States.
Obviously, all users can download “Twitter archive” whenever they want, you just need to request data from the platform.
Request your Twitter Archive
To request your Twitter data, enter your account password and follow the following steps:
- Go to Settings and Privacy on Twitter and find the “Request archive” option;
- Now, the Twitter archive method works because Twitter distinguishes the most relevant tweets and saves them as a Twitter archive file. They’ve archived millions of tweets following this method.
- Once the request is completed, you will receive an email notification. Open it and start downloading “Tweets Archive” as a zip file.
After clicking on “Download Archive,” open the zip to retrieve a CSV file that can be opened with your favorite spreadsheet program - you don’t need a Twitter archive viewer to open the file, so don’t worry!
Now, this viewable archive will allow you to see deleted tweets you posted a while ago.
God bless the Twitter archive!
Find Deleted Tweets FAQ
Are Deleted Tweets Deleted Forever?
It’s impossible to “un-delete” tweets, but it’s possible to retrieve them, as we just showed you in this article.
You just need patience and luck!
Does Twitter Archive Include Search History?
Yes, it does. The company saves all the information related to your specific account.
Karen is a senior technical writer and copywriter at Hypegrowth. Her area of expertize are social media apps and new media.