How to Back Up Your X Archive Before Wiping Your Account

Before deleting your X history, download your official X data archive first — once tweets are deleted they're gone permanently, but the archive keeps a personal copy of every post, like, and DM.

People skip this step and regret it. You delete six years of posts to clean up before a job search, then realize three of those posts were good — a thread you'd want to repost, a photo you never saved anywhere else. Deletion on X is one-way. The archive is your insurance.

This guide covers why backing up matters, exactly how to download your archive from X, what's inside it, and how to reuse that same archive to wipe your account afterward.

Why back up before you wipe

Deleted tweets don't go to a trash folder. There's no undo. Once a post is gone from X, it's gone — and so are its replies, its likes, and any media you didn't save elsewhere.

A backup costs you nothing but a little time. Your X data archive is a complete personal copy: every tweet, like, DM, and bit of media you've ever produced. Download it once, keep it safe, and you can wipe with a clear conscience. The order matters: back up first, wipe second.

How to download your X archive

Get the archive straight from X. Steps and timing per X, as of June 2026.

1. On X, open Settings → Your account → Download an archive of your data.
2. Confirm your password when prompted. X may also send a verification code.
3. Request the archive. X has to build it, which takes time.
4. Wait up to 24 hours. X notifies you when the archive is ready.
5. Download the .zip to a computer, not a phone, on a stable connection.
6. Store it somewhere safe — an external drive or a cloud folder you control.

The waiting is the slow part, so request it a day before you plan to wipe.

What's inside your archive

Your archive is more complete than the live API can ever be. X only exposes your most recent 3,200 posts to third-party tools; the archive contains every tweet ID you've ever posted — including posts from 2012 (as of June 2026). Inside the .zip are your tweets, likes, direct messages, and media, plus an offline viewer you can open in a browser to scroll your whole history even after you've deleted it from X.

Keep the .zip as-is. That's both your backup and the exact file XWipe needs for a full-history wipe — no unzipping required.

After your backup: how to wipe

Now you can delete safely. Which tool you use depends on how much history you have.

• Fewer than 3,200 posts: use XWipe's Quick Delete. It loads your recent posts in 20 to 30 seconds and deletes them in the background — no archive upload needed.
• More than 3,200 posts: upload the same .zip you just backed up to XWipe. The API can't see past your most recent 3,200, but your archive holds every tweet ID — so XWipe uses it to reach and delete your full history.

Either way, deletions run at X's rate limit of about 50 every 15 minutes (~4,800 per day): a 1,000-tweet wipe takes about 5 hours; 50,000 takes 10 to 11 days (as of June 2026). It runs in the background, so close the tab and check back. The neat part: the file you downloaded as a safety net is the same file that powers the deepest wipe. One download, two jobs.

A note on nerves

Cleaning up before a job search, a new role, or a public moment is a normal reason to wipe. It's not paranoid, and you're not the only one doing it. Backing up first just means the decision is reversible on your end — your copy stays even when X's doesn't.

When your archive's ready, here's how to upload it to XWipe (and what to do if the upload fails).

Frequently Asked Questions