Can You Download Old Twitter/X Videos? (What Works, What Doesn't)
By The xfetchy team · June 1, 2026 · 5 min read
People often assume old tweets are harder to download — but the age of a post isn't the issue. A tweet from 2012 that's still live on a public account is just as downloadable as one from yesterday. What matters is whether the post still exists.
What determines whether an old video is accessible
- Post is still live on a public account → downloadable. Age doesn't matter.
- Post was deleted by the author → gone. The media no longer exists on X's servers.
- Account was suspended or banned → gone. All posts from that account are inaccessible.
- Account was set to private → inaccessible, even if it was public when posted.
- Age-gated or sensitive content → requires login to view; can't be fetched without credentials.
How to find an old post you want to save
If you remember roughly what the post was about or who posted it, X's own search is the fastest way to find it. Filter by account and date range. If you have the old URL bookmarked, it still works as long as the post is live.
What about the Wayback Machine?
The Internet Archive sometimes has cached snapshots of old tweet pages — useful for seeing what a post said, but it usually doesn't have the actual video file. If the original post is live on X, go there directly.
Save it before it disappears
If you've been meaning to download a specific old video and it's still live, do it now. Accounts get suspended, creators delete posts, and X has removed content retroactively more than once. The archiving guide covers how to build a proper local archive.
Found the old post and it's still live? Paste the link into xfetchy — it works regardless of how old the post is.
We build xfetchy, a free, no-login Twitter/X video downloader, and spend our days working with X's media formats — so these guides come from hands-on experience, not guesswork.