Why and How I Deleted my 20,500 Tweets

I love decluttering and it became part of my life, I used to hoard stuff before for sentimental value sake but as the years go by, I learned to let go most of my stuff. I don’t just declutter our home but I also declutter my laptop files, my emails, my blog, and social media. Yes, I delete emails, files, photos that I no longer need. I update my old posts, delete blog posts and social media posts that no longer serve any purpose. I believe that there is no good reason to keep them.

September 7,2018

Out of the blue, I checked my Twitter Profile last week and I was surprised because I have 20,500+ tweets. Woah! I’m not really active on twitter but I have 20,500 tweets. Anu-ano ang mga yun? Then I realized that everytime I declutter, I forgot to include my Twitter and I guess I have never deleted any tweets since I started last October 2009.

At first, I was curious what were my tweets look like when I started so I search “How I can Find my Old Tweets”. I used Advanced Search, write my twitter handle, choose the date and click search but for some reasons, this is not working. I can’t find my old tweets. I can’t view per year too. I also tried typing this “from:username since:yyyy-mm-dd until:yyyy-mm-dd” on the Twitter Search button but same fate. So I have no choice but to start deleting my recent tweets until I reach year 2009. I’m so crazy.

Twitter has no option of “Delete All Tweets” or “Delete Multiple Tweets”. I have 20,500 tweets and I was estimating that I can finish this before September ends if I will delete 1000 tweet per day. But I got carried away in deleting my tweets, I started September 2018 until I reached November 2017 tweets and then Twitter stopped displaying my tweets. My Profile shows that I still have 17,200 Tweets but I can’t view anything. And because of that, I learned that “Twitter only displays 3,200 most recent tweets and old tweets cannot always be displayed”. Boom! Two days pa lang ko nagdedelete, nasira na plan ko.

I don’t know how long will I wait for the Twitter to display my Tweets. I know that I can use some service Apps like TweeterDelete, TweeterEraser, and TwitWipe but at that time I don’t want to use any app because it means I have to enter my information pa. My husband even suggested to just delete my Twitter account and start again. Grabe, ang harsh naman ng suggestion. Yes, I can easily do that, I did that with my Facebook Page, Google +, YouTube and even my Email Subscription but one thing I knew, ang hirap magpaincrease ng followers noh. As if sikat ako, lol.

September 9, 2018

And because of the deletion limits, I can no longer delete any more tweets but I did not lose hope. I tried searching for my tweets using keywords. I’m pretty sure that I shared most of my blog posts, on the search button, I type my twitter handle and keywords like travel, trip, recipes, DIY, tips, giveaways, and more. Then I started deleting my tweets and I’ve been doing this for the past few days.

I’m just deleting my old tweets not because I want to hide something or because I posted something na nakakahiya. I am just doing a maintenance so I erased my tweets from my old blogs like My Other Nook, Mrs. Ugly Duckling and Michi Home Sweet Home. I deleted the giveaways, press release, discounts, sales, and promo posts that no longer matters. And because I want a fresh start, I want to delete all.

September 13, 2018 

From 20,500 tweets, I was down to 1,600+ tweets but my dilemma is I can no longer think of any keywords, wala na ko maisip na pwede ko pa isearch. Then I checked my Twitter Profile and I was surprised that Twitter already updated my tweets (after 4 days). Yey, so I erased the remaining tweets and finally no more tweets.

September 14, 2018 

I have zero tweets but as of this writing when I checked my Twitter Profile, bigla nagkaroon ng 9 Tweets pero wala na naman ko nakikita. But anyway, I’m happy that my Twitter Problem is now solved. Fresh start and I promised myself that I will include this in my blog and social media clean up every year. Since 3,200 tweets lang naman ang dinidisplay so yun na ang sign ko.

"Sometimes the best way to be happy is to learn to let go of things you tried hard to hold on to that are no longer good for you"

My only regret is, I did not download a backup copy of my tweets and I don’t even have a picture of my Twitter Profile when I reached 20,500+ Tweets for souvenir sake.

Are you keeping your tweets?