Searching old Twitter posts
Posted by jpluimers on 2020/11/02
I got a bit tired of scrolling back to a known date for posts (as having a couple of 100 tweets visible really makes browsers slooooooooooooooow), so I wondered if you could limit a date range. Yes you can! There are even more options, and there is even a special search page for that:
- [WayBack] Advanced Search
- [WayBack] How to use advanced search
- Examples:
- in English with the hashtag “#WorldCup” sent from Brazil in July 2014
- containing “New Years” but excluding “Resolution” between December 30, 2013 and January 2, 2014
- contains “pluimers” and was posted within 5 kilometers distance of Sassenheim
You can use all these from the regular search as well as per [WayBack] Find Your Old Tweets: How to See Your First Tweet | WordStream.
- https://twitter.com/search-home (via https://twitter.com/search)
- #WorldCup lang:en near:”Brazil” within:15mi until:2014-07-31
- New Years -Resolution lang:en near:”San Francisco, CA” within:15mi since:2013-12-30 until:2014-01-02
- pluimers near:”Sassenheim” within:5km
A was too lazy to find all the possible keywords myself, so used [WayBack] How to use advanced Twitter search queries (with examples!) | Union Metrics (and a few others I found later) to make this list:
keword/prefix meaning/values include word or phrase
if it is an account: includes tweets from, mentions and retweets of that account– negate: exclude this word or phrase @ mentions of an account, but not tweets from it # hashtag lang: two-letter ISO 639-1 language code from [WayBack] What languages can I limit report results to? – Union Metrics Help Desk;
might actually be any BCP 47 IETF language tagnear: region (country, city) within: distance around center of region (at least ##mi for miles and ##km for kilometers are supported) since: date, including the since date until: date, excluding the until date to: reply-tweets to an account (which does not allow an @) from: tweets from an account (which does not allow an @) filter: at least recognises filter:linksto only returns tweets having links:( searches for negative attitudes (it recognises many negative emoticons) :) searches for negative attitudes (it recognises many positive emoticons) ? searches for questions source: at least recognises source:twitterfeedto only return tweets posted via twitterfeedOR include multiple words or phrases
A few tips of things to avoid:
- same start/finish dates: that makes the range 0 days and not display any tweets at all
- too long date range: browsers do not like having many tweets visible at the same time
So this does not work: https://twitter.com/search?l=&q=from%3Ajpluimers%20since%3A2020-01-01%20until%3A2020-01-01&src=typd
But this does: https://twitter.com/search?l=&q=from%3Ajpluimers%20since%3A2020-01-01%20until%3A2020-01-02&src=typd
You can even reclaim your time-line on a specific date: just increase the date by one day: https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=filter%3Afollows%20until%3A2020-01-02%20-filter%3Areplies&src=typd
Three really cool things on that last URL
- it shows as the “old fashioned” (not mangled by Twitter because of popularity/advertisements/etc) way
- you can apply it for the current date as well (just remember to add one day!)
- if you do, it automatically shows if there are updates
Hmm, maybe I should make a redirect that always shows your timeline for today in the non-mangled way (:
Some more links I found during this search:
- Source: twitter search keywords lang within until since – Google Search
- [WayBack] How to use advanced Twitter search queries (with examples!) | Union Metrics
- [WayBack] This is what your Twitter timeline would have looked like 10 years ago – BGR
- https://analytics.twitter.com
- redirects to your user, so for me it becomes https://analytics.twitter.com/user/jpluimers/home
- https://verification.twitter.com/
- is often not available (see [WayBack] ► How to verify Twitter account. IT IS REALLY EASY)
- via [WayBack] How to Get a Verified Account on Twitter (And Is It Worth It?)
- [WayBack] Find Your Old Tweets: How to See Your First Tweet | WordStream
- [WayBack] What can I search for in a Twitter snapshot report? – Union Metrics Help Desk
- [WayBack] How to Search Tweets Without Being Signed Up on Twitter | Gizmo’s Freeware
- [WayBack] Search Twitter More Efficiently with These Search Operators
–jeroen
PS: from the pop-up at https://twitter.com/search-home#
Search Operators
Close
Operator Finds tweets… twitter search containing both “twitter” and “search”. This is the default operator. “happy hour“ containing the exact phrase “happy hour”. love OR hate containing either “love” or “hate” (or both). beer –root containing “beer” but not “root”. #haiku containing the hashtag “haiku”. from:alexiskold sent from person “alexiskold”. to:techcrunch sent to person “techcrunch”. @mashable referencing person “mashable”. “happy hour” near:“san francisco” containing the exact phrase “happy hour” and sent near “san francisco”. near:NYC within:15mi sent within 15 miles of “NYC”. superhero since:2010-12-27 containing “superhero” and sent since date “2010-12-27” (year-month-day). ftw until:2010-12-27 containing “ftw” and sent up to date “2010-12-27”. hilarious filter:links containing “hilarious” and linking to URLs. news source:”Twitter Lite” containing “news” and entered via Twitter Lite
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