How to Download Your X (Twitter) Archive

Downloading your X archive lets you browse a snapshot of your X information, starting with your first post. It also puts a copy of your posting history on your own disk instead of on someone else's servers — which matters, because an X account can be suspended, deleted, or compromised, and keeping a copy of your data is a practical way to safeguard your digital presence.

This guide walks the whole loop: request, wait, download, open, verify, and keep the copy current — including what your options are when account access is limited.

Fast answers: mobile, the download button, opening the ZIP, expired links

If you came here for one specific thing, it's here. Each answer is expanded further down the page.

Downloading the archive on a phone. You can run the whole request from the X app. On iPhone, X's steps are: tap your profile icon, tap Settings and privacy, tap Account, tap Your X data under Data and permissions, verify your identity, then under Download your data and next to X tap Request data. When it's ready, tap Download archive under the Download your data section. On Android the only difference is the first tap — the top menu shows either a navigation menu icon or your profile icon, so tap whichever you have and follow the same steps. Plan to finish on a computer, though: X also emails a download link, and you click the Download button while logged in to your X account to get the .zip. TweetDeleter puts it plainly — you can request on mobile, but the process is smoother on a desktop browser, especially for large files.

Where the download control actually is. There is no download button until the archive has been built. The first control you get is Request data (or Request archive, depending on which screen you're on). Once X tells you it's ready, the control appears in the same settings screen you requested from: on desktop you click the Download data button under the Download data section; in the app you tap Download archive under the Download your data section. If you can't find it, TweetDeleter's advice is to confirm you're logged into the correct account and check your settings — and note that X asks you to be logged into your X account on the same browser you are using to download it.

Opening the archive. What lands is a .zip with a long name containing many letters and numbers, beginning with the word "twitter". On Windows, right-click the ZIP file and select Extract all; on a Mac, double-click the ZIP file to immediately unzip it. Inside, the "Your archive" file is the browsable viewer — it lets you see your data in a desktop web browser, and wikiHow notes it's included as long as your archive is 50 GB or smaller. If the viewer won't open, go to the data folder instead — its README includes detailed instructions on how to navigate the files within your X archive.

Missing or expired download link. The archive doesn't wait for you: TweetBinder reports X archives are available for just one week. If yours has expired, Tweet Archivist's fix is to request a new archive from the settings page and download it as soon as you receive the email — and you can request a new archive every 24 hours if needed. If no email ever arrived, start with your email address: X asks that your email address is confirmed prior to requesting your X archive, and TweetBinder points to an unconfirmed email address as a common root cause of download problems.

What's actually inside an X archive

X delivers a machine-readable archive in HTML and JSON files. According to X, it includes:

• your profile information
• your posts
• your Direct Messages
• your Moments
• your media — images, videos and GIFs you've attached to posts, 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 X has inferred about you
• information about ads that you've seen or engaged with on X

Separately, the Your X data page gives you a snapshot covering account details, account history, apps and devices, account activity, and interests and ads data.

One detail that makes the archive genuinely useful as a backup: your archive includes tweets you've deleted, up until the point you request the archive.

Two things to sort out before you request

Get these wrong and the request fails or the download arrives empty.

1. Confirm your email address first, and use one browser. X asks that your email address is confirmed prior to requesting your archive, and that you are logged into your X account on the same browser you are using to download it.
2. Be ready to verify your identity. You verify by clicking Send code to your email address and/or phone number on file. If you do not have an email address or phone number on file, you will be redirected to the Account information page — sort that out before you start.

Request your archive on desktop (web)

X documents this flow on two of its own help pages, and the wording differs slightly between them. Both start from your account settings and end at a request.

Route 1 — the archive help page. Per X:

1. Go to your Account settings by clicking on the more icon in the navigation bar, and selecting Your account from the menu.
2. Click on Download an archive of your data.
3. Enter your password under Download an archive of your data, then click Confirm.
4. Verify your identity with the code X sends you.
5. Click the Request data button.
6. When it's ready, click the Download data button under the Download data section.
7. Click the Download button while logged in to your X account to download a .zip file of your X archive.

Route 2 — the "accessing your X data" page. X describes it as: click or tap More in the main navigation menu to the left of your timeline, select Settings and privacy, choose Your account, select Download an archive of your data, confirm your password, then select Request archive.

If the labels on your screen don't match one route exactly, try the other — they lead to the same Download an archive of your data screen.

Request it in the iPhone or Android app

The app flow is not identical to the web flow, and it is not identical between iOS and Android either. Use the path for your device rather than adapting the desktop steps.

iPhone (iOS). X's steps: in the top menu, tap your profile icon, then tap Settings and privacy. Tap Account. Under Data and permissions, tap Your X data. Verify your identity. Then under Download your data and next to X, tap Request data. When it's ready, tap Download archive under the Download your data section.

Android. X's steps: in the top menu, you will either see a navigation menu icon or your profile icon — tap whichever icon you have, then tap Settings and privacy. Tap Account. Under Data and permissions, tap Your X data. Verify your identity. Then under Download your data and next to X, tap Request data. When it's ready, tap Download archive.

X's other help page describes a shorter app path: tap your profile icon, tap Settings and privacy, select Your account, tap Download an archive of your data, confirm your password, then tap Request archive. If your app matches that layout instead, follow it.

Where the Download control lives on each screen

Most "I can't find the download button" reports are not a bug. The control changes name depending on whether the archive exists yet, and X's two help pages label the same screens differently. The paths below are the ones X documents — on its archive page and on its Your X data page.

Two things this table makes obvious:

• If the only button you can see says Request, nothing is wrong. The download control is created when the archive is, and X says it may take a few days to prepare the download of your X archive.
• The label depends on the screen, not on you. X's other help page calls the same step Request archive rather than Request data. Either one is the right button.

If the screen looks right but the control still isn't there, check the two conditions X attaches to the download: be logged into your X account on the same browser you are using to download the archive, and — TweetDeleter's version of the same advice — confirm you're logged into the correct account and check your settings.

How long it takes, and how you'll know it's ready

Don't sit and refresh. X says it may take a few days for us to prepare the download of your X archive. One third-party guide puts a floor on it: archive requests typically take at least 24 hours to process and can take several days.

You'll be told when it lands. When your download is ready, X sends an email to your connected email account, or a push notification if you have the app installed — its other help page describes an email and an in-app notification.

Download the ZIP before the link expires

This is the step people lose their archive on. The ready archive is not stored for you indefinitely.

• TweetBinder reports that Twitter archives are available for just one week — make sure to save the ZIP file before your archive downloads, or you'll have to start the process again.
• Tweet Archivist gives the recovery path: archive download links expire after a certain period — if yours has expired, request a new archive from the settings page and download it as soon as you receive the email.

Missing the window isn't fatal, just slow — you can request a new archive every 24 hours if needed.

Missing or expired download link: what to check, in order

Work down this table until one row matches your symptom. Every fix here is safe to try in any order, and none of them costs you the archive — the worst case is another request and another wait.

A note on the first row, because it changes how you should treat the email: the clock starts when the archive is ready, not when you get around to it. Between the at-least-24-hours-and-sometimes-days build time and the one-week availability window, a request you ignore for a fortnight is simply a request you have to make again.

Open the archive and check it (Windows and Mac)

The file you downloaded has a long name containing many letters and numbers, beginning with the word "twitter" and ending with ".zip".

To unzip it: on Windows, right-click the ZIP file and select Extract all; on a Mac, double-click the ZIP file to immediately unzip it.

The browsable viewer ships with normal-sized archives: wikiHow notes that as long as your archive is 50 GB or smaller, this file will be included, and points to a free third-party tool called the X archive browser for anything larger. If the viewer won't open at all, work from the raw files instead — open the data folder inside the extracted archive and read its README, which includes detailed instructions on how to navigate the files within your X archive, alongside descriptive JavaScript files such as followers that open in any text editor.

Then check what you actually got:

Opening the archive when you only have a phone

Requesting the archive is genuinely mobile-friendly. Reading it is not, and it's worth knowing that before you're standing in a kitchen trying to open a multi-gigabyte ZIP on a phone.

The constraint comes from the archive itself. The "Your archive" file X ships inside the ZIP is described by X as one that will allow you to see your data in a desktop web browser — a desktop browser is the environment it's built for. The download has its own condition too: X tells you to click the Download button while logged in to your X account. And TweetDeleter's summary matches the experience — you can request on mobile, but the process is smoother on a desktop browser, especially for large files.

So the sequence that works is a handoff:

1. Request on the phone if that's what you have. The iOS and Android paths above are complete — you do not need a computer to start.
2. Wait for the notification. X sends an email to your connected email account, or a push notification if you have the app installed, so the phone is a perfectly good place to find out it's ready.
3. Open that email on a computer, logged in to the same X account, in the same browser you're using to download.
4. Extract it there — right-click and Extract all on Windows, double-click on a Mac — and open the "Your archive" file.

If you have no computer at all, the archive is still worth requesting: download the .zip and keep it somewhere durable, unopened, until you can extract it. The contents don't expire once they're on your disk — only the one-week window to fetch them from X does. And when you do extract it, keep the whole folder rather than the viewer file alone, since the data folder's README explains how to navigate the files if the viewer won't cooperate.

When the request fails: troubleshooting

The verification code never arrives. If you don't receive the code, prompt it again by clicking the "Didn't receive code?" link, or try the other option that X offers — for example, if you asked for a code via email, request it via text instead.

The "your archive is ready" email never arrived. X notifies you by email to your connected email account, or by push notification if you have the app installed, so check the app's notifications before assuming the request failed. If neither turns up, the usual root cause is your email address: X asks that your email address is confirmed prior to requesting your X archive, and TweetBinder flags an unconfirmed email address as a common root cause of download problems. Confirm it, then request again.

The flow loops back with "Something went wrong" after the code. One user on r/Twitter describes exactly this: "I couldn't get X to let me download my account archive. It would collect the OTP and then loop back with a Something Went Wrong error. Android app and windows web both had the problem. The fix for me was to revoke Google account link in settings ... settings > Security and account access > connected accounts". This is a community-reported workaround, not official guidance — treat it as something to try, and be aware that revoking a connected account changes how you sign in.

You only got a README. See the Safari note above — download your archive with a different browser such as Firefox or Chrome.

Nothing works today. Wait it out and go again: you can request a new archive every 24 hours if needed.

When account access is limited

This is where the archive stops being a convenience and starts being the whole ballgame.

If your account is suspended. You have to get back in first. To get data directly from Twitter, you need to recover the suspended account; once you get access back, you can download the archive as described.

If your account is deactivated. There is a clock. Deactivated accounts can be restored for up to 30 days after deactivation. If you do not log back into your account for the 30 days following the deactivation, your account will be permanently deactivated. Once permanently deactivated, all information associated with your account is no longer available in X's Production Tools. If you're inside that window and you want your data, log back in and request the archive before the 30 days run out.

If you already have the ZIP but can't log in. Reports differ on the browsable viewer. wikiHow states that you can only use the HTML file if you're logged in to X; if you deleted your X account, you'll need to use the files within the data folder to view your archive. X's own help page describes the included "Your archive" file simply as one that will allow you to see your data in a desktop web browser, without attaching a login condition to it. Whichever turns out to be true for your copy, the safe move is the same: keep the whole extracted folder, data directory included, rather than the viewer file alone.

The pattern across all three: every route back to your data runs through an account you may not control. Downloading your archive ensures you have a copy of your data in case your account is suspended, deleted, or compromised — but only if you did it before you needed it.

Can you download someone else's X archive?

No. X doesn't allow you to download an archive from accounts you don't own or have access to — there's no built-in export for another user's posts, followers or Lists.

Keep it current: a preservation routine

The biggest misunderstanding about the X archive is that it's a one-time job. It isn't. Your export includes profile data from when you opened the account up to when you requested the archive. The archive won't continue to update automatically ... If you want a complete record of all your content, you'll have to keep exporting new archives.

A workable routine:

• Refresh on a cadence. Download your archive every 6–12 months to keep a fresh copy of your account data.
• Save the ZIP the day it arrives, given the roughly one-week availability window TweetBinder reports.
• Keep the extracted data folder, not only the viewer file, so you aren't depending on the viewer alone.
• Keep the old archives. Each one is a snapshot up to its request date, so an older archive can hold something a newer one no longer covers.
• Automate the parts you'll forget. Manual exports depend on you remembering; a backup service doesn't.