How to download your Twitter archive and get a full record of all your tweets, followers, and more

Since no one is sure what's next for the social media app, it's a good idea to back up your account.

If you're a power user on the social networking site, you might have thousands of followers. It can be difficult to sift through all the information on a website or app.

You can request a full record and archive of all yourTwitter activity by going to your account options page on the website or the app.

You will be able to download it on any device if your account is active.

How to request your Twitter archive

This is the first thing. If you haven't already, go to the website or the app and log in.

There are two Click the More option if you are on the website. You can see your profile picture in the mobile app.

There are three. You can choose settings and privacy by tapping on it.

Twitter; Kyle Wilson/Insider

There are four. You can download an archive of your data by selecting your account.

Twitter; William Antonelli/Insider

There are five. You will have to re-enter your credentials. You will be taken to a different page if you don't have two-factor set up.

There are six. If you want an archive, select it.

Twitter; William Antonelli/Insider

You will have to wait for the archive to be made by the social network. You will get an email with a link to it when it's finished.

Twitter; Kyle Wilson/Insider

How to download and see your Twitter archive

This is the first thing. You can either open the email link or head back to the data menu. You will have to enter your password again.

You'll need to request it again after a week if you don't download your archive quickly.

There are two Click on the archive to download it again. It might take a while, depending on your internet connection and how large the file is.

Twitter; William Antonelli/Insider

There are three. You need to open the ZIP file after you download it.

There are lots of files inside. It's the most important.

• The file called Your archive.html is a personalized webpage containing the data that Twitter thinks will be most useful to you. This includes all your original tweets (no retweets or replies), your direct messages, the last year-or-so of Likes, your "Moments" and Lists, and a massive amount of information that advertisers have collected about you. You can open this file in nearly any web browser.

Twitter; William Antonelli/Insider

• Inside of the data folder, you'll find README.txt, a document explaining what every single file in the folder is and what it contains.
• You'll also see a folder called tweet_media, which has every photo and video you've uploaded to Twitter or retweeted.

William Antonelli/Insider

The majority of the archive's files are Javascript files, which can be opened in almost any web browser or word processor. The simplest way to read your archive is using theHTML file.

We recommend looking at them on a computer instead of opening them on your phone. It makes it a lot easier to browse through files and pages.