Twitter CEO Dick Costolo has promised in recent months that an option for users to download an archive of all the tweets from their accounts would be available this year. At least for some, this long-awaited feature has arrived – and we've had a play with the archive browsing tool.
The first report of the new option that we saw in the wild was from user @Psilosophy, who indicates where the option supposedly can be found for those who have it enabled – at the bottom of your Settings page.
Go to Twitter settings. Scroll down to "Your Twitter Archive". Download ALL your tweets. Even your first. DO IT. DO EEEEEET NOW!
Twitter user Navjot Singh also has the option available on one of his accounts and he has briefly blogged about the process, explaining:
"Twitter informs that they will mail you the download link when the archive is ready. Yes, its just like how Facebook's archive system works. Once you get the mail and download it you will get a zip file with archive in html form. Extracting it (sic) and you will see all your tweets sorted in calendar format."
Singh forwarded us the email he received from Twitter, inviting him to download his archive: Singh offers this screenshot of the archive's interface: Singh has sent us a copy of this archive and we can confirm that it contains an HTML file that opens to display a page similar in layout to Twitter's own website. It allows you to browse your tweets by month, and search the complete archive (UPDATE: As Gloocomms notes in the comments below, the archive also includes CSV and JSON files, the latter complete with each tweet's metadata. This is also present in the archive we've seen). If you need more evidence, there's user @wushixun who is on Twitter's volunteer Translation team and has been given the feature's text to translate (read from the bottom up): It should be pointed out, however, that he has broken Twitter's Translation Agreement by disclosing "features, functionality, text, graphics, or other information shown through the translator interface." If Twitter is to make this a holiday season gift for us all, it may be a mixed blessing. As @Psilosophy appears to have found, our early tweets may be a little embarrassing, looking back.
OH MY GOD! I USED TO TALK HERE IN THE THIRD PERSON WHEN I FIRST STARTED!! * hangs head in shame *
We've contacted Twitter for the official word on the rollout and will update when we hear back. In the meantime, check your account. Is the option live for you?
UPDATE: Twitter has confirmed to us that it is currently testing the ability to download tweets with "a very small percentage" of users.
Header image credit: AFP / Getty Images
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