Twitter is a fast-moving social media platform that prioritizes fresh content with frequent feed updates. After spending a few minutes scrolling through your feed, you can refresh the feed to see dozens of more Tweets at the top.
But, what if you want to find an old Tweet from someone else on the platform? For instance, you might remember one of the accounts you follow tweeting about a topic that’s relevant in the news right now. Maybe you want to share that Tweet with your followers. In that case, knowing how to search for a Tweet from that user can be helpful.
Before we get started, if you’re here to learn how to find your own old tweets, check out this guide instead. In this article, we’re solely covering how to find old tweets from other users.
How to Find Old Tweets from Other Users
Screenshot via Twitter
Finding old tweets from other Twitter users is easy if you know how to use the search function. Here are the steps to take:
- Put your cursor in the Twitter search bar.
- Type in the formula to find someone else’s Tweets: from:[username]. For example, if you want to find Tweets from the ShareThis account, you’d type: from:ShareThis.
Twitter will pull up all Tweets from that account in the search results. However, you’re searching for old Tweets from that account, so we need to narrow it down more.
To do that, you can enter a date range into the formula:
From:[username] since:[YYYY-MM-DD] until:[YYYY-MM-DD]
Let’s say that you’re relatively confident the Tweet you want to find from ShareThis was somewhere in February or early March of 2016. To find it, you’d use this formula:
from:ShareThis since:2016-02-01 until:2016-03-15
Screenshot via Twitter
The results will show you all Tweets from the ShareThis account from that time period. However, the default setting is to show you the top Tweets from that account during the period. Switch over to ‘Latest’ if you want to see the Tweets in chronological order from newest to oldest during that period instead.
Tweaking Your Search for Old Tweets from Other Users
This tactic can work on any account on Twitter to find Tweets from specific periods. If an account did not have any Tweets during the period you specified, you’ll see a ‘No results’ message. In this case, use a different time period in the formula. You might need to broaden your search by a few months.
If your search results in too many Tweets to sift through, try adding a keyword or phrase to your search. For example, the search from:sharethis since:2018-01-01 until:2018-07-31 leads to several ShareThis Tweets.
Screenshot via Twitter
However, adding ‘referral traffic’ to the end of the search term (like this: from:sharethis since:2018-01-01 until:2018-07-31 referral traffic) results in showing only the Tweets that have that phrase included.
Screenshot via Twitter
What To Do If You Can’t Find the Tweet You’re Looking For
If you don’t have a specific date range in mind to find a Tweet from another Twitter user, you can use other parameters to search for Tweets.
For example, you might want to find Tweets from that user about a specific topic, like in the example above with the search for referral traffic. To search for this term in the user’s Tweets, you’d search from:[username] [search term].
You can also do the same with hashtags (from:[username] [#hashtag]) and mentions of other accounts (from:[username] [@account mention]) from that Twitter user.
Alternative Method for Finding Old Tweets from Twitter Users
Screenshot via Twitter
If the search formula method above doesn’t suit you, try using Twitter’s advanced search feature to find old Tweets from other users. The advanced search tool lets you search for any word, phrase, hashtags, languages, and other parameters you set. Scroll down, and you’ll also find space to enter a specific account to search only its Tweets.
At the bottom of the tool is where you can enter the date range you’d like to search. This method shows the same results as the formula method, but it can be easier to navigate for some users.
Finding Old Tweets from Other Users
Once you find the old Tweets you’re searching for, you can use them the same way as any new Tweet by liking, commenting, retweeting, or quote-tweeting them. Retweeting or quote-tweeting old Tweets from other users may even help you spark engagement on your feed when used in relevant or timely contexts. For instance, you might retweet an old Tweet from another user about a topic that’s trending right now to bring attention to your feed and help grow your followers.
To boost Twitter engagement effortlessly, install the Twitter share button on your blog or website. Your visitors can share your carefully crafted content with their Twitter followers with a simple click, driving more traffic to your website and more followers to your account.
