An account that has been active for several years can hold tens of thousands of tweets, and the oldest of them are often the ones you would least want a stranger to read first. Clearing everything before a chosen year is the natural fix, but the scale makes it daunting: you cannot delete tens of thousands of posts by hand, and X cannot even show you most of them. Bulk, working from your full archive, is the only realistic path.
The reason native deletion falls short is structural. X's API exposes only your most recent 3,200 tweets, so on a long-lived account the bulk of your old history is simply out of reach. To bulk-delete everything before a specific year, you need your archive and a date filter applied across all of it.
How to bulk-delete tweets from before a specific year on X.Download your X data archive and find the tweet.js file.Open Circleboom Twitter's Delete All Tweets and upload tweet.js.Apply a date filter to select every tweet before your chosen year.Review the set and deselect any old posts worth keeping.Run the deletion to clear your whole pre-year history.
→ Run it in Delete All Tweets
The sections below explain why bulk-from-archive is the right approach and how to clear your old timeline safely.
Why bulk from the archive is necessary
There are two limits native X imposes, and together they make a year-based reset impossible without help. The first is no bulk deletion: every removal is a manual, one-post action. The second is the 3,200-tweet API ceiling: even a tool that automates deletion through the API can only reach your most recent posts, leaving years of older content untouched.
The archive solves the second problem, and bulk processing solves the first. X generates your complete data archive on request, and the tweet.js file inside it lists every tweet you have ever posted, regardless of age. Circleboom's tweet-cleanup tools read that file and let you filter the whole history by date, so a single operation can clear everything before your chosen year, no matter how far back it goes.
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Before you begin
You will need a connected X account, your data archive from X, your target year, and a moment to review. Because Circleboom is an official X Enterprise Developer, the deletion runs through X's approved API at a paced, safe speed. The archive supplies the full tweet list; the API performs the removals within X's rate limits.
How to bulk-delete tweets before a specific year
Step 1: Get your archive and find tweet.js
Request your data archive from X, which arrives within roughly 24 to 48 hours. Inside the archive folder is tweet.js, the file containing your complete tweet history.
Step 2: Upload tweet.js to Delete All Tweets
Open Delete All Tweets and follow the wizard. Upload only the tweet.js file, which must come from the account linked to your subscription. Circleboom reads it and reports your total tweet count.
Step 3: Filter to everything before your year
Apply a date filter to select every tweet created before January 1 of your target year. All uploaded tweets start selected, so the filter narrows the set to only your pre-year history.
Step 4: Review and protect keepers
Scan the filtered set for old posts with lasting value, a milestone, a popular tweet, a piece of proof, and deselect them. The bulk action then leaves those in place.
Step 5: Run the bulk deletion
Run the deletion on the filtered set. Circleboom paces it through the API within rate limits, which can take time for a large history, so keep the browser open until it completes. When it finishes, every tweet before your chosen year is gone in a single operation. Launch it from Delete All Tweets.
Why the archive step is worth it
Some people balk at the archive download, since it adds a day or two before they can act. It helps to understand why that step is not optional and why it is worth the wait. The 3,200-tweet API limit is a hard ceiling that X applies to every tool, including its own. There is no setting, subscription, or workaround that exposes older tweets through the live API, because the limit is built into how the platform serves tweet data. The archive is the one official channel through which your complete history is made available, which is exactly why a true full-history deletion must run through it.
Seen that way, the archive download is not a hoop to jump through but the thing that makes the whole job possible. Without it, you could clear your recent posts and nothing more, leaving the oldest and often most dated tweets, the very ones a year-based reset is meant to remove, permanently in place. The day or two of waiting buys you access to your entire history, which is the difference between a cosmetic recent cleanup and a genuine reset of your public record. For more on full-history cleanup, these guides help. Start with how to delete all tweets on X and this definitive guide to deleting all your tweets. For related decisions, see how to delete your Twitter account and how to see deleted Twitter accounts and tweets.
Choosing the right year to cut at
The single most important decision in this whole process is where to draw the line, so it deserves a moment's thought before you upload anything. The right year is usually tied to a real transition rather than a round number. If you rebranded, switched careers, or changed what your account is about at a particular point, that moment is your natural cut-off, because everything before it belongs to a different chapter and everything after reflects who you are now.
It also helps to think about what you might lose at the boundary. A year-based cut is blunt by design: it removes everything before the line regardless of individual value, so a genuinely useful old tweet sitting just before your cut-off will go with the rest unless you deselect it. That is why the review step matters. Before running the deletion, scan the filtered set for anything from the old period that still carries weight, a viral post you are proud of, a piece of proof, a thread people still reference, and protect it. Choosing the year sets the broad stroke; reviewing the set adds the precision, and together they let you reset your history without sacrificing the few old posts genuinely worth keeping.
Recap
Bulk-deleting tweets from before a specific year is a clear workflow: download your archive, upload tweet.js, filter by date, and clear the pre-year set in one paced operation. Because Circleboom works from your archive, it reaches your entire history, not just the recent 3,200 posts, while the date filter keeps everything from your chosen year onward. Open Delete All Tweets and you can reset years of old content in a single session. The clear Twitter history and delete old tweets on iPhone tools extend the same workflow.
Frequently asked questions
Why can't I just bulk-delete old tweets through the API?
The X API only returns your most recent 3,200 tweets. Older posts are not accessible that way, which is why a year-based reset on a long-lived account requires the archive.
How long does getting the archive take?
X generates and delivers your data archive within roughly 24 to 48 hours of your request. Then you upload only the tweet.js file.
Does the bulk delete touch my recent tweets?
No. The date filter selects only tweets before your chosen year, so everything from that year forward is left untouched.
Can I undo it?
No. API deletions are permanent. Keep your archive file as the record of what was removed.
Is bulk deletion against X's rules?
No. Circleboom is an official X Enterprise partner, and all deletions run through the approved API within X's rate limits.
