How to Delete Tweets or Your Twitter Account

Are you thinking of doing a full digital detox? Or maybe you just want to tidy up your social media presence. If you’re an active Twitter user, you probably have a lot of content on the platform that you don’t think you should’ve shared. Good news is, there’s an app that you can find to get rid of those embarrassing tweets. 

But if you’ve made up your mind and decided to leave Twitter for good, then learn how to delete your Twitter account, as well as how to back it up to keep your Twitter memories intact.

Before You Delete Your Twitter Account

Even if you made a decision to delete your Twitter account, you might still want to hold on to your Twitter memories. Unfortunately, you can’t download or save any of your interactions with other Twitter users, like the tweets you liked, or the list of your followers. 

However, you can back up your media, tweets and retweets.

How to Back Up Your Tweets

To download your data from Twitter, follow the steps below.

1. Open the Twitter app in your browser or on your smartphone.

2. On the left, select the menu icon (three horizontal dots in your browser, or three horizontal lines in your mobile app).

3. Select Settings and privacy.

4. If you’re using your computer, select Your account > Download an archive of your data. If you’re using your smartphone, select Account > Your Twitter data.

5. Twitter will ask you for your account’s password. Fill it in and select Confirm.

6. Under Twitter data select Request archive.

When your data is ready, you’ll receive a notification on Twitter and an email that will contain a link to download a ZIP file with an archive of your data.

How to Delete Your Tweets

If you’re not sure whether you want to delete your Twitter account entirely, you can start by deleting some (or all) of your tweets. There are a few different ways you can do this.

How to Delete a Single Tweet

One way to rid your Twitter account of your tweets is to go over them one by one and delete them individually.

To delete a single tweet in your browser, go to your Twitter account and locate the tweet you want to get rid of. Then select the three dots in the upper-right corner of the tweet. From the dropdown menu select Delete.

To delete a tweet using your smartphone app, go to your Twitter page and locate the tweet you want to delete. Then select the dropdown arrow next to it and Delete Tweet.

How to Delete All of Your Tweets at Once

If you’ve been using Twitter for some time now and never deleted any of your tweets, you might want to delete a number of them at once. Twitter doesn’t have a built-in option to do that. However, you can use an app to do work around the limitation.

TweetDelete is a free app that allows you to mass delete your tweets. TweetDelete works both on desktop and smartphone, so you can use any of your devices to delete your tweets.

To delete multiple tweets in TweetDelete, follow the steps below.

1. Open TweetDelete on your computer or smartphone.

2. Select Sign in with Twitter.

3. TweetDelete will ask you to give permission to access your account. Select Authorize app.

4. Select Delete tweets.

5. You can select whether you want to delete all of your tweets or just tweets from a certain period of time. You can also use a text search tool to filter the posts you’d like removed. Once you set the parameters, select Delete my tweets.

If you have over 3,200 tweets that you’d like to remove, you can repeat the process until they’re all gone. You can also use this app to automatically clean up your tweets every few days.

How to Delete Your Twitter Account

Before you get rid of your Twitter account, make sure you prepare for it first. Aside from backing up your Twitter data, it’s important to decide whether or not you want to set up a new Twitter account in the future and use the same username and email address for it.

To make your username and email address available for future reuse, you need to change them on your current Twitter account before deleting it. To do it, follow the path Settings and privacy > Account information. Then change your Username and Email.

Once your new account details are confirmed, you can delete your Twitter account by following the steps below.

1. Open the Twitter app in your browser or on your smartphone.
2. On the left, select the menu icon (three horizontal dots in your browser, or three horizontal lines in your mobile app).
3. Select Settings and privacy.

4. If you’re using your computer, select Your account > Deactivate your account. If you’re using your smartphone, select Account > Deactivate your account.

5. Read Twitter’s notice about deactivating your account under What else you should know. Then select Deactivate to confirm.

You’ll then have 30 days before your account is wiped from Twitter. If you don’t change your mind, just wait for 30 days till your Twitter account is deactivated.

How to Reactivate Your Twitter Account

If you deactivated your account on Twitter by mistake, don’t worry, Twitter has a way to restore it. If you change your mind within 30 days of your Twitter account’s deactivation, you can easily get it back. To reactivate your account, log back into it at any time before the 30-day period runs out, and confirm reactivation.

Should You Leave Twitter?

Before you make the decision to delete your Twitter account for good, make sure you know why exactly you’re doing it. For example, if you’re just tired of that one (or a few) Twitter users that are ruining your fun on the site, consider blocking them instead. 

Have you ever thought of deleting your Twitter account or maybe just old tweets of yours? What made you stay on (or leave) Twitter in the end? Share your Twitter experience with us in the comments below.