As with other social media platforms, like Facebook and Instagram, compliance and legal professionals often need to archive X accounts for official use.
X has remained, after its rebrand from Twitter, one of the most widely used social media sites for companies and government agencies. The change has not come without controversy, though, as major companies like Disney and Apple paused advertising on the platform after new owner Elon Musk wrote and boosted antisemitic posts.
Musk’s late-2022 purchase of Twitter also preceded a broader increase in hate speech on X. In response, many companies stopped posting on the platform. Even if your company or organization has left X, the need to archive posts has not gone away —especially if you’re operating in a highly regulated industry.
At a glance, X archiving typically satisfies part of the FOIA and open records recordkeeping requirements for public entities. In the private sector, archiving generally happens in anticipation of or response to regulatory audits or legal matters.
Below is important information about staying current with X’s updated archiving procedures and policies to avoid penalties, compliance headaches, and reduced public trust.
Notable Changes on X Since Musk’s Purchase
The rebranding of X goes beyond aesthetics. Musk has adopted a posture that’s more forgiving of controversial speech, which many critics say has allowed hate speech to proliferate on the app. Interestingly, though, the number of suspended accounts increased dramatically in the first year after Musk’s purchase.
Another substantive change has been the introduction of X Premium, which gives paid subscribers a slew of benefits—including the ability to edit posts. The site's increased volatility makes proper archiving even more essential for businesses and government agencies.
Why Organizations Still Need to Archive X Accounts
Leaving X does not mean your company can forget about everything it posted on the platform. For example, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) requires broker-dealers and certain other financial firms to retain records of business communications going back three years. The retention period may be longer for many federal agencies under FOIA requirements and state agencies subject to various open records laws.
Litigation, non-legal disputes, and investigations also place importance on X archives. Discovery—which can apply to deleted, deactivated, or inactive accounts—flows a lot more efficiently when you have reliable account archives. If nothing else, archives provide organizations with institutional knowledge and records critical for brand protection.
Option 1: Downloading Your X Account Using Native Tools
The simplest option for downloading X data is to use the in-app function, which you can do by going to the account’s “Home” page and clicking “More” in the bottom-left corner (if you’re working on a PC). You’ll then select “Settings and privacy” from the pop-up menu.
Expanded “More” menu showing access to Settings and privacy.
Click the first option under “Settings,” which is “Your account.” Next, shift your attention to the right-hand side of the screen and click “Download an archive of your data.”
X will likely ask you to verify your login with a code sent via text or email.
X Settings page highlighting the “Download an archive of your data” option under Your Account.
After completing the two-factor authentication, you’ll be able to request your X archive; click “Request archive,” a blue button, on the right side of your screen.
X account page to request a downloadable data archive.
It may take up to 24 hours for your archive to be ready for download, at which point X will email you a link to download it.
Confirmation message after requesting an X data archive.
Email notification from X confirming the account archive is ready for download.
After logging in and completing two-factor authentication for (at least) the second time, click “Download archive” on the right side of your screen.
X password verification prompt before downloading account archive.
Then click the blue “Download archive” button.
X account settings page for downloading an account data archive.
You will be taken to a new screen where you must click “Download Archive” once more, and X will start the process of sending the archive to your computer.
X data archive details page showing generation date, expiration date, and file size.
The download will be in the form of a ZIP file, which will need to be extracted. After you’ve extracted the ZIP file, you’ll be left with something resembling the following:
Top-level folders and files inside a downloaded X archive.
The file titled “Your archive.html” can open in your default web browser after double-clicking the icon.
Inside an exported X (Twitter) data archive showing media folders and account data files.
What you’re provided with, essentially, is a bare-bones version of your X account. From here, you can view your posts, Reposts, Replies, Likes, Messages, and other interactions.
Inside an exported X (Twitter) data archive showing Tweets view.
Limitations of X’s Native Data Download
For personal reference, the user-friendly HTML view is likely sufficient. But if your goal is compliance or legal defensibility, there are important limitations to understand.
1. No Authentication or Chain of Custody
When you download your X archive, the files are generated at the time of your request and saved locally. There’s no digital signature and no documented chain of custody.
That means:
- No SHA-256 hash
- No way to show who handled it and how it was stored
Once the file is downloaded, there is no built-in mechanism to prove it hasn’t been altered. If authenticity is challenged, you carry the burden of proving:
- When the file was created
- How it was stored
- Who had access to it
- Whether it was modified
If you ever need to present that data in court, during an audit, or in response to a records request, you have no built-in way to prove the file hasn’t been modified. You would have to manually document and defend that process yourself—which introduces unnecessary risk.
Under evidentiary standards like the Federal Rules of Evidence, digital records often need to be self-authenticating or supported by reliable proof of integrity. X’s native export file does not meet that threshold.
2. Deleted Content Is Not Included
Native exports reflect what exists in the account at the time you request the download. If content was deleted before the export was generated, it will not be included.
That means:
- Deleted tweets are not recoverable
- Removed media is not preserved
- Deleted replies are not captured
For regulated industries and public-sector organizations, this distinction matters.
For example, SEC Rules 17a-3 and 17a-4 require broker-dealers to create and preserve accurate records in tamper-proof formats. These rules are built around proactive preservation — not retroactive downloads of currently visible content.
Similarly, government agencies subject to FOIA and state open records laws must preserve public records regardless of format. Producing what is live today is not the same as maintaining a complete historical record.
Once something is deleted, it may still be considered a record — but the native export cannot recover it.
3. No Ongoing Retention or Supervision Framework
The native export is a one-time download.
It does not:
- Continuously archive new posts
- Capture edits as they happen
- Preserve content automatically
- Apply retention schedules
- Support supervisory review or oversight workflows
For individuals, that may not matter.
But for organizations required to retain communications over multi-year periods — and to demonstrate active supervision — a periodic manual download does not function as a records management system because it is reactive, not proactive.
4. Not Built for Evidence Presentation or Scalable Production
Even though the HTML version included in the export is easy to view, the files are not structured for effective courtroom presentation.
When you introduce social media evidence in court, you typically need to attach documentation that will answer very specific questions, like:
- What is the exact URL of the post?
- When was it published?
- What account posted it?
- Were images or videos attached?
- What other content was associated with it (replies, media, threads)
- What does the metadata show?
- What does the full content say in context?
- When and how was this evidence retrieved?
In practice, you need to present this information clearly, in a format that is:
- Easy for a judge or regulator to understand
- Structured and consistent
- Exportable into court-usable formats like PDF
- Organized so that each exhibit stands on its own
The native X archive is not designed for that purpose.
While the HTML archive is readable in a browser, there is no clean, standardized way to export what you see on screen — complete with context and metadata — into a presentation-ready format suitable for court or formal investigation.
You cannot simply generate a properly formatted, authenticated exhibit package for each tweet.
You’ll need to dive into the JavaScript files in the downloaded “data” folder to retrieve something that may pass muster in an investigation or legal matter. If you need help using the archive files, the “READ ME” JavaScript file contains a general navigation guide.
As is so often the case with these kinds of archive downloads, however, the content has been broken apart and stripped of context. Here is what a portion of that folder may look like for you:
Inside an exported X (Twitter) data archive showing media folders and account data files.
All the images from posts can be found in the “tweet_media” folder, while the posts themselves can be found in the “tweets.js” file. When you view this .js file through a JSON viewer, you’ll see something like this:
Tweet data displayed in JavaScript format from a downloaded X archive.
All posts from the account have been strung together and stripped of their context, including their associated media. On the positive side, “tweets.js” is at least a single file that could be authenticated with a hash value, but the content is difficult to understand at a glance and hardly the sort of thing you’d want to present in court.
Instead, you would need to:
- Manually extract relevant content
- Reconstruct context
- Capture metadata separately
- Document retrieval details
- Format everything for presentation
- Try and defend the records as authentic, though it took a lot of reconstruction and potentially manipulation to present them
And you would need to repeat that process for every single post entered into evidence.
For a single tweet, this may be manageable.
For dozens, hundreds, or years of content, it becomes operationally burdensome — and increases the likelihood of inconsistency or error.
Why Screenshots Are Risky
At first glance, simply taking screenshots of relevant posts can seem like a good solution, but manually capturing static images like this can introduce certain issues:
- Proving the authenticity of a screenshot is not possible, which means screenshots do not meet the Federal Rules of Evidence. In many cases, they will not satisfy an auditor or court. When it comes to presenting a screenshot in court, a sponsoring witness will be needed to prove that the image is real—and even then, it’s likely that opposing counsel will question its authenticity.
- Screenshotting a single Tweet is quick and easy, but capturing an entire account this way can be time-consuming, frustrating, and error-prone.
- A Tweet can be deleted after you’ve taken a screenshot of it. While you will have managed to capture the image, the lack of metadata can make it difficult to show that your version is authentic. How do you prove that your screenshot is an accurate representation of a tweet that appeared on someone’s account—especially if that tweet has been deleted?
For the reasons listed above, static images are not the ideal way to collect and preserve posts—at least not for a legal matter or regulatory audit. In many ways, screenshots provide less authenticity than X’s native archive download and are more suited for personal records.
Best Practice for Archiving Your Own X Account
When it comes to collecting and preserving data for legal and compliance purposes, a preferable alternative is to use an automated archiving solution that archives X content in real time, like Pagefreezer’s Social Media Archiving solution.
With real-time, automated social media capture, your organization can:
- Use full-text search to locate specific records across your entire archive.
- Retain all context—archived content has the same look and feel as the original platform.
- Capture replies, reactions, and retweets, and view them in the context of the original Tweet.
- Retain all relevant metadata necessary for compliance and litigation.
- Access edited or deleted posts that are no longer visible online.
- Authenticate archived content through hash values and digital signatures..
- Easily export records to PDF in full context, with all associated metadata.
- Place an account on legal hold to ensure nothing crucial is deleted.
Archiving Third-Party X Content for Investigations and Disputes
Generally, X users are limited to archiving only posts and replies from their own accounts. Even likes, which were previously visible to all users, are no longer accessible from outside the user account.
Although legal discovery and subpoenas can compel parties to give access to private X content from third-party accounts, those options may not be available in preliminary investigations such as open-source intelligence (OSINT) inquiries.
Capturing Third-Party X Posts Before They Disappear
In situations involving harassment, defamation, and ads adjacent to objectionable content, time is of the essence, as the content in question can be deleted at any time. However, screenshotting and other manual capture of posts, comments, and threads can be cumbersome and waste valuable time.
Fortunately, better options exist for organizations looking to capture the full context of certain social media content for audits, investigations, and litigation. WebPreserver, is designed for uber-efficient documentation of third-party X content and other third-party web content.
With just a few clicks, users can capture long, collapsed comment threads and entire timelines to save your team time and energy on manual capture. This means when you spot evidence online, it can be collected immediately, before it gets deleted or edited. WebPreserver also ensures captured files have associated metadata and digital signatures to ensure their legal defensibility.
Choosing the Right X Archiving Approach Based on Your Use Case
Users wanting to capture X content indeed have a few options for archiving, but, depending on the context, some methods may be less appropriate than others.
In most cases, the following should apply:
- Personal reference: Native and in-app archiving options are usually sufficient.
- Limited or targeted contexts: Screenshots might provide the documentation you need, but we do not recommend relying on them for legal or compliance matters.
- Audits, compliance, and legal matters: Automated archiving software generally offers the most comprehensive content-capture options. However, be mindful that only certain platform providers meet rigorous standards, such as those set forth in the Federal Rules of Evidence. Opting for solutions with searchable databases also enables legal teams, compliance managers, and investigators to efficiently gather relevant evidence and avoid potentially costly delays.
- Investigations involving third-party accounts: On-demand evidence collection tools like WebPreserver are optimal. For best results, choose a digital tool that automatically expands and captures threaded comments or posts, and stores them in tamper-proof format with digital signatures to ensure chain of custody and prove their authenticity in court.
Archive X the Right Way with Pagefreezer
The substantial changes x has undergone, including the paradigm shift to a less moderated environment and its cascading effects, have made content capture trickier but no less important for legal, compliance, and investigative teams. Additionally, leaving the platform in response to X’s changes does not mean that archiving obligations no longer apply to companies and government agencies.
If your organization relies on X (or relied on it in the past) for outreach, customer engagement, or public communication, downloading a ZIP file isn’t enough to reduce compliance risk.
Pagefreezer’s Social Media Archiving solution automatically captures your X content in real time — preserving posts, replies, edits, deletions, and metadata in a tamper-proof, searchable archive.
That means:
- No gaps from deleted content
- No manual screenshots or piercing records back together
- No scrambling during audits or litigation
Instead, you get defensible, court-ready records that help you respond to FOIA requests, regulatory audits, and legal matters with confidence.
If X is part of your communications strategy — past or present — it should be part of your archiving strategy too.
