How to Bulk Erase Old Tweets for Free

Why Delete Your Old Tweets?

By Greg Brailsford UpriseRI

One of the primary reasons people choose to delete their old tweets (or rather, “posts” – is that what we’re supposed to call them now?) is the simple fact that people change. 

What seemed witty, insightful, or appropriate years ago may no longer align with one’s current beliefs, values, or public image. As we grow and evolve, so too do our perspectives of the world. 

The version of you that fired off a controversial opinion in 2010 may cringe at that same sentiment today. Privacy concerns also play a significant role in the decision to purge old tweets. With the increasing sophistication of data mining and artificial intelligence, every tweet becomes a potential data point for analysis. 

Elon Musk and his Grok AI models are using our digital interactions to train algorithms and predict behavior. By deleting old tweets, you can limit the amount of personal data available for harvesting, potentially reducing your digital exposure and maintaining a greater degree of privacy.

The professional implications of past online behavior have become increasingly relevant in recent years. Employers routinely scour social media profiles of potential hires, and old tweets taken out of context can have devastating consequences on your career prospects. 

What was once an innocuous joke shared among friends can become a liability in the professional world. By proactively removing potentially problematic content, you can safeguard your professional reputation and avoid the pitfalls of having your entire online Twitter (er, X) history scrutinized by current or future employers.

Of course the decision to delete old tweets is not without its critics. Some argue that erasing one’s digital history is a form of revisionism, potentially obscuring personal growth and accountability. Others point out that once something is posted online, it may never truly disappear, as screenshots and archives can preserve content long after it’s been deleted from the original platform. But if you are not a public figure, it is unlikely that this applies to you, and that’s good news.

Bulk Deleting Tweets for Free

There are several services out there that offer to delete tweets in bulk or on a rolling basis. While many used to be free to use, changes to Twitter’s API policy have added a significant cost to this functionality, and now nearly all of these services charge a monthly or annual free for the privilege. But we’re here to show you how you can still do it free and easily. All you need is a desktop web browser (sorry mobile phones users, you’ll need to find a computer). This script will delete tweets, replies, and retweets in the date range you set.

One-Time Setup Instructions:

1.     Download the open source “Delete Tweets” javascript file to your computer (right click the link and click Save).

2.     Open the file using a text editor, such as Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac). The file will have a bunch of javascript code and if you’re not a developer, it will look foreign to you. Don’t worry. The next steps are easy.

3.     Keep that file open in your text editor, but go back to your browser and open up Developer Tools. In Chrome, just hit the F12 key to do this. On Mac’s with Safari, it’s Option-Command-C. Now you will see more stuff you probably don’t understand. No worries. Let’s continue. By the way, these steps 1-8 you only have to do once. When you want to bulk delete tweets again in the future, it’s much easier.

4.     With Developer Tools open in your browser, click the tab at the top that says “Network”. Below that you’ll likely see the word “All” highlighted. To the right, find and click the link that says Fetch/XHR or just XHR.

5.     Now, there is a column called “Name” with a bunch of events popping in and out. If you don’t see anything, reload the page by tapping the F5 key. Now, click any event that starts with “client_event”.

6.     On the right, find the line that says “Authorization” and has a huge code to the right that may start with “Bearer”. Highlight and copy that entire code (CTRL-C, or Command-C)

7.     Go back to that file you opened in your text editor. At the top, paste the code you just copied between the quotes where you see “PASTE YOUR AUTH CODE HERE”. Go back to your browser and a few lines down from Authorization, find X-Client-Transaction-Id. Copy that code and paste it to the text file a few lines down where you see “PASTE YOUR X-CLIENT TRANS ID HERE”.

8.     Almost done. In the text file, towards the top where you see “PASTE YOUR X-CLIENT-UUID HERE”, paste this between the quotes: 2f0m9a61-39aa-8edc-8222-81140d2f4d9b (you can actually make up any code you want here, but this one works).

9.     Last one. Again, in the text file a few lines down from the last entry, find “YOURTWITTERHANDLEHERE” and put your actual Twitter (X) handle between the quotes (eg. joe_shmoe123987). That’s it. Setup is done. You won’t have to do these steps again.

Each Time Instructions:

1.     The “hard” part is done. Now, you decide the range of tweets to delete. A little way down the text file, find the lines that start “after_date” and “before_date”. This is the range of tweets to delete. Starting values are already entered for you. Follow the same format. So if the “after_date” is 2023-01-01 it will not delete any tweets before that date. Those will be saved. If the “before_date” is 2023-06-01 it will not delete any tweets after that date. Everything between those dates will get shitcanned. Once you’ve set your dates copy the entire text file (CTRL-A or Command-A to highlight and then CTRL-C or Command-C)

2.     Go back to your browser and go to your Twitter profile page.

3.     Bring up Developer Tools again (F12 in Chrome, Option-Command-C in Safari). Click the Console tab at the top. You should see an arrow prompt in the bottom window. Paste the entire text file you just copied there. Hit enter. Let it run. Depending on how many tweets you have to delete it could take awhile. Consider deleting in batches, a few months or a year at a time.

4.     Once it is finished the bottom line will say “DELETION COMPLETE (if error happened before this may be not true)”.

5.     The next time you want to delete tweets, just edit the dates in the file, copy and paste it into the Console window in your browser’s Developer Tools and hit enter.