Full-Archive Search Quickstart

Search the complete Post archive back to 2006

This guide walks you through making your first full-archive search request to find Posts from the complete X archive, dating back to March 2006.

Full-archive search requires Self-serve or Enterprise access. Upgrade your access to use this endpoint.

Prerequisites

Before you begin, you’ll need:

• A developer account
• Your App’s Bearer Token (found in the Developer Console under “Keys and tokens”)

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Step 1: Build a query

Full-archive search supports all query operators. Build queries the same way as recent search:

from:XDevelopers lang:en

Full-archive search supports queries up to 1,024 characters (4,096 for Enterprise).

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Step 2: Set a time range

By default, results return Posts from the last 30 days. Use start_time and end_time to search specific periods:

Parameter	Format	Example
start_time	ISO 8601	2020-01-01T00:00:00Z
end_time	ISO 8601	2020-12-31T23:59:59Z

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Step 3: Make a request

cURL

shellscript

curl "https://api.x.com/2/tweets/search/all?\
query=from%3AXDevelopers&\
start_time=2020-01-01T00%3A00%3A00Z&\
end_time=2020-12-31T23%3A59%3A59Z&\
max_results=100" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BEARER_TOKEN"

---

Step 4: Review the response

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "1271111223220809728",
      "text": "Tune in tonight and watch as @jessicagarson takes us through...",
      "edit_history_tweet_ids": ["1271111223220809728"]
    },
    {
      "id": "1270799243071062016",
      "text": "As we work towards building the new Twitter API...",
      "edit_history_tweet_ids": ["1270799243071062016"]
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "newest_id": "1271111223220809728",
    "oldest_id": "1270799243071062016",
    "result_count": 2
  }
}

Posts created before the edit feature was introduced (September 2022) won’t include edit_history_tweet_ids.

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Step 5: Add fields and expansions

Request additional data with query parameters:

cURL

shellscript

curl "https://api.x.com/2/tweets/search/all?\
query=from%3AXDevelopers&\
start_time=2020-01-01T00%3A00%3A00Z&\
end_time=2020-12-31T23%3A59%3A59Z&\
tweet.fields=created_at,public_metrics,author_id&\
expansions=author_id&\
user.fields=username,description&\
max_results=100" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BEARER_TOKEN"

---

Step 6: Paginate through results

The SDKs handle pagination automatically. For cURL, use the next_token from the response:

curl "https://api.x.com/2/tweets/search/all?\
query=from%3AXDevelopers&\
max_results=500&\
next_token=b26v89c19zqg8o3fo7gesq314yb9l2l4ptqy" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $BEARER_TOKEN"

Pagination guide

Learn more about navigating large result sets

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Key differences from recent search

Feature	Recent Search	Full-Archive Search
Time range	Last 7 days	March 2006 to now
Access required	All developers	Pay-per-use, Enterprise
Max results per request	100	500
Query length	512 chars	1,024 chars
Rate limit	450 / 15 min	300 / 15 min, 1 / sec
Authentication	App-Only, User Context	App-Only only

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Common parameters

Parameter	Description	Default
query	Search query (required)	—
max_results	Posts per page (10-500)	10
start_time	Oldest Post timestamp	30 days ago
end_time	Newest Post timestamp	Now
next_token	Pagination token	—
tweet.fields	Additional Post fields	id, text
expansions	Related objects to include	—

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Next steps

Build a query

Master query syntax and operators

Operator reference

See all available operators

Pagination guide

Handle large result sets

API Reference

Full endpoint documentation