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It’s hard to quit something you actually find useful. Case in point: Twitter (or maybe now “X”?) Sure, the site has been actively on fire for the better part of a year, but there are still a lot of interesting and funny people tweeting away. You probably have a lot of those tweets saved to your Bookmarks, which requires you to revisit your Twitter account to view.
If you want to quit Twitter for good but still have the option to return to your favorite tweets, you should know how to export them to another source. Twitter doesn’t make it easy, but there’s a solid option out there to help you break up with—shudder—X.
Twitter API pricing killed most of the best options
One option that seemed great was BirdBear. It was developed by someone who had the same frustrations we’ve listed here, and from what I can see, people liked the program. However, Twitter’s new API pricing killed the app. It’s the same story for this barebones web app: While you can still connect your Twitter account, nothing happens when you try to click the “Download” button, and the developer confirmed in a Reddit comment the tool is out of commission. Thanks Elon.
Perhaps unsurprisingly considering the above, it’s hard to find a good method for exporting your Twitter Bookmarks and connected media for free. However, as of July 2023, it looks like there’s at least one option out there that can help.
Use Tweetsmash to export and backup your Twitter Bookmarks
The one I found was Tweetsmash, a service that lets you export your Bookmarks to its proprietary site, as well as other destinations like Notion and Google Sheets. It’s easy enough to set up: After creating an account with a no-commitment free trial, you connect it to your Twitter account. You’ll be giving Tweetsmash access to the following, so make sure you’re okay with that before connecting your accounts:
- All your Bookmarks
- All the Tweets you can view, including Tweets from protected accounts
- Lists, list members, and list followers of lists you’ve created or are a member of, including private lists
- Any account you can view, including protected accounts
Once you connect, you’ll be taken to the main Tweetsmash dashboard. There’s a lot you can do here, but the immediate step is to check “All Bookmarks” under Explore & Manage on the left. Here, you should see all Bookmarks you’ve saved on Twitter, including their media. You can view them here, or use your browser to save the photos and videos to your computer. The archive seems to only take in Bookmarks as well, rather than remove them—meaning if you add new Bookmarks on Twitter, they’ll appear here, but if you delete them on Twitter, they’ll remain on Tweetsmash. If you want any deleted, you’ll need to delete them with Tweetsmash’s tool.
You can also connect to third-party apps like Notion, Google Sheets, or Zotero, if you want to back up your Bookmarks to other places. But if you’re just looking for a way to view and download your Bookmarks without having to return to Twitter (or whatever the hell they decide to call themselves in the future), Tweetsmash will work just fine.
Most of Tweetsmash’s features are paid, but you probably don’t need them
Because of Twitter’s new API pricing, Tweetsmash won’t give you unlimited access to its features for free. After the initial seven-day free trial, your account will be limited unless you upgrade to a paid plan. That said, while you won’t be able to do things like sync to third-party apps, it seems like you can still access your imported Bookmarks stream here. You might lose out on some search and filtering features, but it seems to be a solid way to archive your Bookmarks for free.
Tweetsmash does warn that the API is acting up lately. For one, you’re limited to 800 Bookmarks, whether you pay or not. I don’t have that many so it doesn’t affect me, but if you’re someone with 1,000+ saved tweets, you might run into that roadblock no matter where you look. You might also find some of your Bookmarks don’t show up, even if you have under 800, because Twitter is broken. Tweetsmash recommends using the Chrome extension in this case (but the website seems to be just fine for me).
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