This article will teach you how to find someone's old tweets using Twitter's Advanced Search Form on an iPhone or iPad. As long as the user hasn't deleted their tweets, made them private, or blocked your account, you'll be able to easily find any tweet the user sent between two specific dates.
Steps
Step 1. Find out when the user started using Twitter
To find someone's older tweets, you need to find out the month and year when the person created their account. This is how you do this:
- Open Twitter (the blue icon with a white bird; usually on the home screen).
- Access the user's profile by tapping on their username or on a photo in a tweet.
- The date is next to "Started with" at the top of the profile (below the name and location).
- Return to the home screen once you have written down or remembered this date.
Step #2. Go to https://www.twitter.com in Safari
Since Advanced Twitter Search isn't part of Twitter's official app, you'll need to use an internet browser to search for old tweets.
Safari is the blue, red, and white icon of a compass usually found on the home screen
Step 3. Log in to your Twitter account
If you are not logged in yet, you must press login in the top right corner, enter your username and password and then press login.
A Twitter search page will appear, but it won't be the Advanced Search form yet
Step 4. Swipe down on the page to reveal the toolbar
This is the gray bar with the blue icons at the bottom of the page.
Step 5. Tap the Share icon
It's near the center of the toolbar.
Step 6. Swipe left on the bottom row of icons and press Request desktop site
This is almost in the middle of the row. The website will refresh and display a white form with 'Advanced Search' at the top.
- If your iPhone has a small screen, you'll probably need to zoom in to see the text and fields.
- To zoom in, place two fingers on the part of the screen you want to magnify. Then spread your fingers apart. To zoom back out, pinch two fingers together on the screen.
Step 7. Type the person's username in the "From these accounts" box
This is the first option under the "People" heading.
- Do not include the '@' symbol. For example, if you're looking for old tweets from @wikiHow, just type wikihow in the field.
- Type your own username to search for your own tweets.
Step 8. Enter the time period for which you want to view the tweets
Scroll down to the "Dates" heading, then set a start and end date for your search. This is how you do this:
- Press the first blank field next to 'From this date' to open the calendar. Press the arrow in the top left corner of the calendar until you reach the month and year when the user started using Twitter, press the first day of that month, then press Finished.
- Tap the second blank field (to the right of "to"), tap the end date you want to see tweets for, then tap Finished.
Step 9. Refine your search (optional)
If you want to see all of a user's tweets from the selected time period, skip this step. Otherwise, you can search the following sections to see if additional filters would narrow the results:
- Words: In the section at the top of the page you can decide to only show tweets that contain (or don't contain) certain words, phrases or hashtags.
- People: To see only tweets that the selected user has sent to a different username, type the other username in the "To these accounts" field (under the "People" heading).
- Places: Select a location under this heading if you want to display the user's tweets from the selected time period and sent from a specific location.
Step 10. Press Search
It's the pink button in the lower-left corner of the form. Twitter will now display all tweets sent by the selected user between the dates you specified.