How to Reset a Twitter Account

Thinking about a fresh start on X (formerly Twitter) without losing your username and hard-earned followers? You’re in the right place. This guide covers everything you need to know about resetting your account, showing you exactly how to wipe your old content clean and build a new presence from the ground up, all while keeping your handle and audience intact.

What Does It Actually Mean to "Reset" a Twitter Account?

First, let's be clear: X doesn't have a big red "reset" button. Unlike deactivating your account (which just temporarily hides it), a reset is a manual process you undertake to achieve a clean slate. It’s for when you want a complete do-over - perhaps you're rebranding, starting a new career, or simply want to erase a cringey past - without saying goodbye to the username and community you’ve already built.

When you reset your account, you’re basically scrubbing it of all existing content. Here’s a quick breakdown of what you keep and what you get rid of:

• What you KEEP: Your unique username (@handle), your list of followers, the accounts you follow, and your original account creation date.
• What you REMOVE: All of your past tweets, retweets, replies, and likes. You will also clear out your profile picture, header image, bio, location, and website link.

The goal is to end up with an account that looks brand new but has the advantage of a built-in audience and an established handle. For anyone with a significant following, this is a far better option than starting a new account from scratch and hoping people find you again.

Before You Start: The Most Important First Step

Before you delete a single tweet, download your X Archive. This is your personal backup of everything you've ever posted, liked, or direct messaged on the platform. Even if you're sure you want everything gone, having a personal copy is a smart move. You never know when you might need to find an old link, photo, or conversation. More importantly, many of the best third-party deletion tools require you to upload your archive to erase tweets older than the most recent 3,200.

Here’s how to request your archive:

1. Navigate to your X profile on a desktop browser.
2. In the left-hand navigation menu, click on More, then select Settings and privacy.
3. Go to Your account and click on Download an archive of your data.
4. You'll need to re-enter your password and verify your identity.
5. Once verified, click the Request archive button.

X will then start compiling your data. This isn't instantaneous, it can take anywhere from a few hours to a day or more, depending on how active your account has been. You'll receive an email and an in-app notification when your archive is ready to download as a .zip file. Save this file somewhere safe on your computer before you proceed.

Choosing Your Path: The Manual Method vs. Automated Tools

There are two primary ways to delete your content: painstakingly, one by one, or efficiently, with the help of a specialized tool. The right choice for you depends entirely on the size of your digital footprint.

Method 1: The Manual Cleanup (For Small Accounts)

If you have only posted a few hundred tweets over the years and are fully committed to a bit of grunt work, the manual method is an option. It's free and doesn't require trusting a third-party service with your account access.

How to Manually Delete Your Content:

• Deleting Tweets: Go to your profile page and scroll through your timeline. For each tweet, click the three-dot menu (...) and select "Delete." A confirmation pop-up will appear, click "Delete" again. Repeat this for every single tweet and retweet you want to remove.
• Unliking Tweets: From your profile, go to the "Likes" tab. Scroll through the list and click the heart icon on each tweet to unlike it. The red heart will turn grey, and the tweet will disappear from your Likes list.
• Wiping Your Profile: This is the easy part. Simply click "Edit profile" and delete the text in your bio, location, and website fields. You can also remove your header and profile pictures here.

The Big Limitation: The biggest drawback of the manual method is that X's timeline only displays your most recent 3,200 tweets. If you have more than that, you won't be able to scroll back far enough to delete them manually. They will still exist and can be found via search, but they are inaccessible from your main profile feed. For anyone with a long history on the platform, this makes the manual method impractical and incomplete.

Method 2: Using a Third-Party Tool (The Smart Choice for Most People)

For anyone with more than a couple hundred tweets, an automated deletion service is the only realistic way to go. These tools connect to your X account via its API and can systematically delete your tweets, retweets, and likes in bulk, often using your archive file to access your entire history.

While some of these services are free for a limited number of deletions, most require a small one-time or subscription fee for a full archival wipe. Considering the hours of manual work they save, it's often a worthwhile investment.

Popular and generally reputable services include TweetDeleter, TweetDelete, and Circleboom. Always do your own research and read recent reviews before granting any service access to your account.

Step-by-Step Guide to Using an Automated Tool:

The exact interface will vary from tool to tool, but the general process is very similar across platforms.

1. Sign Up and Authorize Access: Go to the website of your chosen service. You'll be prompted to sign in with your X account. This will trigger a standard authorization screen from X, asking you to grant the application permission to access your profile and post/delete tweets on your behalf. This is a necessary step for the tool to work.
2. Upload Your X Archive: This is where that .zip file you downloaded earlier comes in. Most premium deletion services will have a section where you can upload your archive file. This empowers the tool to "see" and delete every tweet you've ever made, bypassing the 3,200-tweet limit imposed by the API. Find the `tweet.js` or similar data file within your unzipped archive folder to upload.
3. Configure Your Deletion Settings: Now you can tell the tool exactly what you want it to do. You’ll typically have a range of options, such as:
   • Delete All Tweets: The "nuke" option. This will wipe everything.
   • Filter by Date Range: Only delete tweets before a certain year or between specific dates.
   • Filter by Keyword: Erase any tweet containing specific words or phrases.
   • Filter by Tweet Type: You can choose to delete only retweets or replies, leaving your original tweets intact.
4. Delete Your Likes: Most of these tools also have a separate function to bulk-unlike tweets. Just like with tweet deletion, you can typically set it to remove all likes at once.
5. Start the Deletion Process: Once you've set your parameters, you'll start the job. The tool will begin working its way through your profile. For large accounts, this process can take several hours, but it will run in the background. You don’t need to stay on the page.
6. Revoke Access (Important Final Step!): After the service has finished deleting all your content, it’s a good security practice to revoke its access to your X account. You can do this by going to your X Settings > Security and account access > Apps and sessions > Connected apps. Find the service you used and click "Revoke app permissions."

After the Purge: Rebuilding Your Brand New Account

Congratulations, your slate is clean! But the work isn't fully done. An empty profile can look suspicious or inactive. Now is the time to rebuild it with a new focus.

• Craft Your New Profile: Your bio, header image, and profile picture are the first things people see. Make sure they clearly communicate your new direction, brand identity, or personal focus. Your bio should be concise and compelling, and your imagery should be high-quality and professional.
• Create a Pinned Tweet: Your first new tweet is prime real estate. Craft a message that reintroduces you and your new direction. Pin it to the top of your profile so it's the first thing visitors see. This can be a simple "Hello again!" or a mission statement explaining what you'll be tweeting about moving forward.
• Develop a New Content Strategy: Don't fall back into old habits. Think about what you want to achieve with this account now. Who is your audience? What kind of value will you provide? Plan out your content themes to ensure your new timeline is focused and consistent from day one.

Final Thoughts

Whether you roll up your sleeves for a manual cleanup or use an automated tool for a comprehensive wipe, resetting your Twitter account gives you a unique opportunity to rebrand and start over without losing your followers or username. By following these steps, you can confidently clear out the old and make way for a more intentional and powerful presence on the platform.

After giving your account a fresh start, consistently managing your new strategy is what truly makes the difference. At Postbase, we built our platform precisely for this. With our beautiful visual calendar, you can plan out your new content strategy at a glance, and because our scheduling is built from the ground up for modern platforms, you can trust that your posts - including short-form video for Reels, TikTok, and Shorts - will publish reliably, every time. It’s designed to help you build your new brand presence with confidence after hitting reset.