How to Delete the Full Twitter History

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Twitter doesn’t make it easy to clear out your tweet history.
Image Credit: milicad/iStock/GettyImages

Twitter has been around for more than a decade. If you've been on the social media platform for even half that time, you've likely amassed a long and varied history that you may not want hanging out there. You'll need to use the built-in delete feature to delete Twitter likes, tweets or your history, or you can use a third-party app to manage tweet deletes in bulk.

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Delete Twitter History

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In recent years, it's become all too clear that one tweet posted years ago can come back to haunt you. Even if you aren't running for office, you may want to make sure some long-forgotten tweet doesn't resurface. Unfortunately, Twitter doesn't make it easy to clear out your tweet history.

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Unless you have hours to go back through your history, removing one tweet at a time, the only option Twitter offers is to delete your entire account and start over. But there are great services, such as TweetDelete and TwitWipe, that will make the entire process a breeze. Once you're finished deleting, you can set new tweets to expire after a certain time period has passed.

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Delete Individual Tweets

Sometimes you don't want to delete your entire Twitter history, just certain tweets. Apps like TweetDelete let you remove groups of tweets at one time. This is ideal if you have a range of time you want to wipe off the map, like those pesky college years.

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Before you download TweetDelete or TwitWipe, though, the easiest route may be to remove individual tweets, particularly if you aren't a heavy user of the app. You may simply be able to go back through those older tweets and remove any that don't match the image you want to portray today. To delete individual tweets, just tap the drop-down arrow in the upper-right corner of the tweet and select Delete Tweet.

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Managing Twitter Likes

You may not realize this, but Twitter users can see every tweet you've liked. All they have to do is click on the Likes tab on your profile and there they are. If you simply want to look through and unlike a few, the easiest way to delete Twitter likes is to tap on the heart beneath the tweet and, voilà, the tweet will no longer show up under your Likes tab.

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If you want to delete Twitter likes in bulk, or remove your entire Like history without deleting your account, you can do that in Google Chrome. Log into your Twitter account in Chrome, navigate to Likes, then hit F12. This will pull up the browser's debug console, at which point you can input this script: $('.ProfileTweet-actionButtonUndo.ProfileTweet-action–unfavorite').click(); into the field that reads Console. When you hit Enter, you'll be able to unlike tweets in bulk.

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View Twitter Search History

Do you know Twitter saves your search history and uses it to suggest new searches? Anyone with access to your devices can view Twitter search history merely by clicking on the search box. Recent searches will display in a drop-down list. For privacy reasons, you may not want someone to be able to see this.

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To manage what shows up in the box when you view Twitter search history, you'll only need to tap on the X next to Recent Searches, then tap Clear. This will remove everything. If you have any saved searches, you'll need to swipe left and tap on the Delete button when it appears. This will give you a clean slate whenever you click on the search box on Twitter, although new searches will save as recent, and Twitter will still have the data on the back end that it can use to customize your experience.

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