A lot of people delete their Tweets, especially if they’re controversial or contain something embarrassing. But what if you want to see someone’s deleted Tweets?
If you’re curious about what someone has deleted from their Twitter, it can be hard to find out. Even if you know their username, the Tweets might not show up in a search because they’ve been deleted.
But there are some ways you can find deleted Tweets. This guide will show you how to find and view any user’s deleted Tweets. I’ll cover a few methods that work today and I’ll look at why people want to dig up deleted Tweets in the first place.
As a bonus, I’ll cover why you Don’t want to use some apps online that claim to find deleted content from Twitter. If you prefer I also include a video below.
How to See Someone’s Deleted Tweets on Twitter
It’s easy to delete any Tweets you have sent from Twitter. Maybe you just made a mistake, or maybe you had second thoughts about that comment. You’d think that once a Tweet has been deleted from Twitter it would be gone for good. But you would be wrong!
Once Tweets go live on Twitter they can be viewed across the web. They can be indexed in Google and other search engines and show up in searches. Thanks to the nature of the internet a Tweet can be shared and re-Tweeted and show up in many different places. Simply hitting the delete button isn’t going to remove it from everywhere.
I’m going to cover the best ways to find someone’s deleted Tweets using some free tools.
If you want to find your own deleted Tweets you should check out my guide – How to Recover Deleted Tweets. It can be done through your Twitter account and is safe and reliable. I’d also recommend reading my guide on how to tell if your Twitter account is hacked.
Find Deleted Tweets Using the WayBack Machine
There is a handy online tool called the Wayback Machine or the Internet Archive. It takes snapshots of websites and stores them so they can be viewed at a later date.
The Wayback Machine doesn’t store every single website or page but it has an impressive collection. Twitter is one of the websites that is archived.
The Wayback Machine can be used to find deleted Tweets from any user. Simply go to https://archive.org/web/web.php and paste in the Twitter username you want to search for into the “Browse History” box and hit enter. The next screen will list the snapshots taken of their Twitter account. You can sometimes go back years and select a screenshot.
The screenshots will show their actual Tweets taken at that time even if they were later deleted.
The problem with finding deleted Tweets using the Wayback Machine is that you’ll have to scroll through and search for the Tweet. There is no way to search for a specific Tweet by keyword for example. My next method might be better when searching for a specific Tweet.
See a Deleted Tweet with Google Cache
You can use Google cache to search for deleted Twitter content. This method works well for recently deleted Tweets and you can search for the titles or text in the Tweets.
Google stores a record of pages published on the internet including from Twitter. Because Twitter is so big Google tends to store Tweets quickly and they can be searched on Google. They also have a cached version where they store older content.
Try searching in Google for the Twitter username you want to find out about – eg. https://twitter.com/susankdy. In the search results, you can click on the 3 dots beside the title and it will show you the cached version of the page. Even if the content has been deleted by the user it may still show up in the Google cached version here.
Try searching for the specific Tweet if you know what it said and you can get a result quickly without having to spend ages scrolling through results.
How To View Another Person’s Deleted Tweets Using 3rd Party Apps?
Ah, using online apps that claim to find deleted Tweets. I have written extensively about these kinds of tools available for most social media programs like Snapchat and Instagram. Unfortunately, most don’t work and are nothing more than money making scams.
They will ask you to enter the username of the account you want to find the deleted Tweets from. Then claim your data is available if you just enter your email or complete a survey. In the end, you don’t get any data or deleted Tweets. But they get your email to sell on to marketing companies or they get paid from the survey. Scams!
There were a couple of apps that were popular for supposedly finding someone’s deleted Twitter content:
Snapbird – is no longer available. From what I can tell it only allowed you to see your own deleted Tweets. Regardless, Snapbird is no longer online.
Twipu – another app that is no longer online. Again it only allowed you to see your own deleted Tweets.
There is a reason why these apps never survive. They don’t work as claimed and usually cause more harm and security risks to users’ accounts.
Using Spy Apps to View Deleted Tweets on Twitter
This is an alternative method that might work for you in specific circumstances. I write a lot about spy apps on this website – using them for legal and ethical purposes. Most good-quality spy apps can monitor everything someone does on apps including Twitter.
If you are monitoring your kid’s phone and need to see their deleted Tweets on Twitter a spy app can be great. An app like mSpy or FlexiSPY will report everything they do on Twitter – even if they delete it right away. They will allow you to see deleted Tweets, pictures and videos on Twitter. Have a look at what these apps can do in my detailed reviews:
Why Would You Want to See Deleted Tweets?
People have many reasons to want to see deleted Tweets. Many are curious about what someone might have said in the past. It could be an old friend, a current partner, or someone you are dating.
Maybe they want to check out a partner’s profile to see if there is anything incriminating. In some cases, people have even been known to use deleted Tweets as evidence in legal cases.
Celebrities and politicians often say things on Twitter they later regret. Seeing their deleted Tweets can give you some insight into what they were thinking or what might have been going on in their life at the time. There always seems to be some politician getting called out for past Tweets!
Some people use this information for investigative journalism or political reasons – trying to find out if a politician deleted a Tweet for example.
You just might see something you weren’t meant to on Twitter and want to find out more! Whatever your reason, there are ways to find deleted Tweets.
Are These Tweets Gone Forever?
If you’ve ever accidentally posted something to Twitter that you immediately regretted, you may have been relieved to find that you can delete the tweet. But does that mean that the tweet is actually gone? Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.
Even if you delete a tweet, it can still be cached by search engines or quoted by other users. In some cases, deleted tweets have even been used as evidence in court cases.
So while you may be able to get rid of a Twitter post from your own account, it’s important to remember that once something is on the internet, it can be very difficult to remove it completely.
How to Find Deleted Twitter Pictures?
A Tweet can be text, a picture, a video, or any combination of these. So, all the methods for finding deleted Tweets will work for finding deleted Twitter pictures and videos.
If I Delete My Twitter Account Will the Tweets Be Deleted?
When you delete your Twitter account your Tweets will be deleted from the Twitter platform and no longer visible. Your data will be removed from the Twitter servers but when that happens depends on Twitter.
But as we have seen in this guide although your Tweets might be removed there will still be records of them online. It can be difficult to remove all traces of your Tweets even if you delete your Twitter account.
Before I finish up please take a minute to check out some of my other Twitter guides. Can you see who views your Twitter profile? You might be surprised. Then see how to hack Twitter – find out how people can hack into your account.
Now Find That Tweet
That just about covers how to see deleted Tweets on Twitter. Deleting a Tweet doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s gone forever. There are several ways to view someone’s deleted Twitter posts, and many people are surprised to learn just how easy it is.
So, if you’re ever curious about what someone might have said in a deleted Tweet, don’t hesitate to do a little digging – you might be surprised at what you find.
Thanks for reading.
