To back up your Twitter account, download X's own data archive from Settings, then export the parts you will actually reuse, such as your tweets, followers and bookmarks, to CSV or Excel with a tool like Circleboom. Do it once a month, so a lock or a mistake never costs you more than a few weeks of posts.
Accounts get locked, suspended or hacked, and tweets get deleted by accident. When that happens, years of posts, the list of people who follow you and every tweet you bookmarked can disappear overnight. A backup is the only thing that brings them back.
What to Back Up on Twitter
"Your Twitter data" is more than tweets. A complete backup covers:
- Tweets: your posts with their text, dates and engagement. Export Tweets
- Followers and following: the audience you built, so you can find them again on a new account. Export Accounts
- Bookmarks: every tweet you saved for later, which X gives you no way to export. Export Bookmarks
- Retweeters: the people who reposted your tweets. They already like what you share, which makes them your warmest potential customers if you sell a product or a service. Export retweeters
Method 1: Download Your X Data Archive
X lets you request a full archive of your own account. Here is how:
- Open X and go to Settings and privacy.
- Choose Your account, then Download an archive of your data.
- Confirm your password and the verification code X sends you.
- Click Request archive.
- Wait for the email or notification that your archive is ready, then download the ZIP file.
The archive is thorough: it includes your tweets, your direct messages, the media you posted and your account information. Open the "Your archive" file inside the ZIP to browse it in your web browser.
It also has limits. Preparing it usually takes a day or more, everything comes in one large ZIP, and it is built for browsing, not for sorting or filtering. It only covers your own account, and you can't request a new one straight after the last.
Method 2: Export Your Tweets to CSV or Excel with Circleboom
When you want a backup you can actually work with, export it. Circleboom's Export Tweets saves up to 3,200 of an account's most recent tweets to CSV or Excel, with the text, timestamps and engagement for each tweet, so you can sort, filter and reuse your best posts in minutes.
It works for more than tweets. You can export your followers and following, your bookmarks and the people who retweeted you, and you can download the tweets of any other public account too.
Circleboom is an Official X Enterprise Developer, so every export comes through X's official API. Nothing is scraped, and you never share your password. For a full walkthrough, see how to download tweets from Twitter.
| X data archive | Circleboom export | |
|---|---|---|
| What you get | One ZIP with tweets, DMs, media and account info | CSV or Excel files for tweets, followers, following, bookmarks and retweeters |
| How fast | Usually a day or more | Minutes |
| Sort and filter | No | Yes, in any spreadsheet |
| How many tweets | Your full history | Up to 3,200 most recent tweets per account |
| Other accounts | No, only your own | Yes, any public account |
The two work best together: keep the archive as your complete record, and use the exports for the data you open, sort and reuse.
How Often Should You Back Up Your Tweets?
Once a month is a good rhythm for most accounts.
Do the math. If you post 3 tweets a day, you write about 90 tweets a month and around 1,100 a year. With a monthly backup, the worst case after a lock or an accidental delete is losing one month, about 90 tweets. With no backup, it is everything. If you post several times a day or run a business account, back up every week.
A backup also makes cleanups safe. Before you remove fake and bot followers or delete old tweets, export first, so nothing you remove is lost for good.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can you archive your Twitter account?
X has no button that freezes or archives an account. What you can do is download an archive of your data from Settings, which saves a copy of your tweets, messages and media, and keep your account as it is or deactivate it afterwards.
How do I download all my tweets?
For your full history, request your X data archive. For a spreadsheet of your recent tweets that you can sort and filter, use Circleboom's Export Tweets, which saves up to 3,200 tweets to CSV or Excel.
Can you see who retweeted your tweet?
Yes. Open the tweet and tap its repost count, or the post engagements view, to see the accounts that reposted or quoted it. To save that list and use it later, export the people who retweeted you.
Does a Twitter backup include DMs?
The X data archive includes your direct messages. A tweet export does not, so if your messages matter, request the archive as well.
Will my backup still work if my account is locked?
Yes. A backup lives on your own computer, so it stays yours whatever happens to the account. That is why you make it before you need it. If your account is already restricted, see what a temporary label on X means.
Conclusion
Backing up your tweets takes a few minutes, and losing them can take years of work with it. Request your X archive for the complete record, export your tweets, followers and bookmarks for the data you will reuse, and repeat it every month. If your account is ever locked or a cleanup goes wrong, everything that matters is already safe on your computer.
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