13 votes

[SOLVED] Archiving a deceased loved one's Twitter timeline, including media

Posted by asoftbird
Tags: social media, archiving, twitter, ask.advice, tech support, solved

Recently a loved one of a friend has died and they would like to archive their entire timeline (no retweets), including media they posted.

I've looked around a little bit and the Twitter API only allows 3200 tweets to be exported. As this includes RTs, this goes back to about 2018, while the account was made in 2011, so it's missing about 90% of their tweets. Also, getting all the media isn't really possible.

Do any of you know a way to accomplish this? Or, can anyone direct me to scripts that crawl the page and save every non-RT tweet + potential media? I'm not very tech-oriented but I can at least run python scripts.

I should mention that I've so far checked out Allmytweets.net (returns RTs) and the Twitter archival project (or whatever it's called), which is a group of people that help in archiving accounts, but they haven't responded yet.

8 comments

  1. [6]
    heavyset_go
    Link
    twint is a tool that I've used in the past, and I believe it has a GUI. It doesn't use the API so there are no 3200 tweet limits. If you want help using it, I'd be happy to help. I'd also be happy...

    twint is a tool that I've used in the past, and I believe it has a GUI. It doesn't use the API so there are no 3200 tweet limits. If you want help using it, I'd be happy to help.

    I'd also be happy to run it for you, and send you the result. Just shoot me a PM.

    5 votes
    1. [3]
      nobody
      (edited )
      Link Parent
      Unfortunately it does have a limit of 3200 tweets. OP might have more luck with this other tool, however it requires signing up for a Twitter developer account, beside some command-line knowledge.

      Unfortunately it does have a limit of 3200 tweets.

      OP might have more luck with this other tool, however it requires signing up for a Twitter developer account, beside some command-line knowledge.

      2 votes
      1. asoftbird
        Link Parent
        Nope, totally just extracted 5085 tweets. That's just for those functions listed.

        Nope, totally just extracted 5085 tweets. That's just for those functions listed.

        3 votes
      2. heavyset_go
        Link Parent
        Just for future reference if anyone stumbles upon this thread in the future, Twitter doesn't hand out developer accounts like they did a few years ago.

        Just for future reference if anyone stumbles upon this thread in the future, Twitter doesn't hand out developer accounts like they did a few years ago.

        1 vote
    2. [2]
      asoftbird
      Link Parent
      Thanks, seems to work fine until it encounters emojis; in particular it doesn't like the blue heart emote. I think I found a fix to that though, so let's see how that goes. Takes a while for the...

      Thanks, seems to work fine until it encounters emojis; in particular it doesn't like the blue heart emote.
      I think I found a fix to that though, so let's see how that goes.
      Takes a while for the tool to start running after calling the command, but once it's going, it's going fast :P

      edit: yup, works!

      1 vote
  2. [2]
    shiruken
    Link
    What about the Twitter archive download? Or do the family of the deceased not have access to the account?

    What about the Twitter archive download? Or do the family of the deceased not have access to the account?

    1. asoftbird
      Link Parent
      no account access! anyway, the tool linked by heavyset_go works, so I guess this is solved now

      no account access!

      anyway, the tool linked by heavyset_go works, so I guess this is solved now

      1 vote