X / Twitter
Enumeration, search operators, deleted content recovery and tools for investigating X accounts.
Key Concepts
Every account has two identifiers:
- Handle:
@username(can change) - User ID: numeric, permanent (survives handle changes and suspensions)
Unlike Bluesky, X now requires a login to browse most content in the browser. The free API tier (v2) is severely limited. Most open-source scraping tools that bypassed the API (Twint, snscrape, GetOldTweets3) are broken since the 2023 API lockdown.
Account Enumeration
Handle to User ID
The user ID stays constant when someone changes their handle or gets suspended. Several web tools resolve it:
Or via the profile page source: look for "id_str" in the page JSON.
Banner last update time
The profile banner URL contains a Unix timestamp indicating when the banner was last changed:
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_banners/{user_id}/{unix_timestamp}/600x200Right-click the banner image and copy the URL, or inspect the page source. Convert the timestamp at unixtimestamp.com.
Timestamp from ID (Snowflake)
Twitter IDs are Snowflake IDs: the numeric value encodes the exact creation time of a tweet or account. Extract it with:
tweet_id = 1234567890123456789
timestamp_ms = (tweet_id >> 22) + 12888349746571288834974657 is Twitter’s custom epoch (Nov 4, 2010). Works on both tweet IDs and user IDs — useful to confirm account creation date without needing profile metadata.
Several online converters exist if you don’t want to do it manually — search “snowflake id decoder”.
Direct profile URL by ID
Old tweet/profile URLs using numeric IDs still resolve even after handle changes:
https://x.com/i/user/$USER_IDSearch Operators
Accessible at x.com/search. Operators are combinable.
| Operator | Example | Effect |
|---|---|---|
"..." | "exact phrase" | Exact match |
from: | from:handle | Posts by user |
to: | to:handle | Posts directed at user |
since: | since:2024-01-01 | After date (YYYY-MM-DD) |
until: | until:2024-06-30 | Before date (YYYY-MM-DD) |
lang: | lang:fr | Language (ISO 639-1) |
near: | near:"Paris" within:10km | Geo (web only, not API) |
geocode: | geocode:48.85,2.35,5km | Geo by coordinates |
filter:images | Posts with images | |
filter:videos | Posts with videos | |
filter:links | Posts with URLs | |
filter:verified | Verified accounts only | |
-filter:replies | Exclude replies | |
min_retweets: | min_retweets:100 | Engagement threshold |
min_faves: | min_faves:500 | Engagement threshold |
#tag | #osint | Hashtag |
-term | -spam | Exclude term |
Boolean: spaces imply AND, use uppercase OR for alternatives, parentheses for grouping.
Direct search URL
https://x.com/search?q=from%3A$HANDLE+since%3A2024-01-01&f=livef=live returns chronological results instead of relevance-ranked.
Google Dorks
site:x.com "$TARGET"
site:twitter.com "$TARGET"
site:x.com/i/status "$KEYWORD"
"twitter.com/$HANDLE" OR "x.com/$HANDLE"Old twitter.com URLs are still indexed separately from x.com, search both.
Deleted and Archived Content
Wayback Machine
https://web.archive.org/web/*/twitter.com/$HANDLE/status/*
https://web.archive.org/web/*/x.com/$HANDLE/status/*Manually browse snapshots, or use waybacktweets to batch-retrieve CDX data:
pip install waybacktweets
waybacktweets $HANDLEOutputs CSV/JSON with archived tweet URLs. Useful for deleted posts and suspended accounts.
Twayback
Web tool wrapping the same Wayback CDX API with a UI:
https://twayback.space/Note: only works if the tweet was crawled before deletion.
Profile history
The Wayback Machine also archives profile pages: past bios, display names, profile photos, header images. Check snapshots at:
https://web.archive.org/web/*/twitter.com/$HANDLE