@neilhimself Yeah, that is some malicious compliance.

@neilhimself there are tools that transform the raw data into browseable content. Will have a look for you when I get out of bed :)

@neilhimself Oh crap, I am downloading my data with the express purpose of knowing who I was DMing with :/

@neilhimself I'd like to know that too. I was so bummed when I looked at my DM data

@neilhimself so many memories being held hostage.

@neilhimself have you looked at TweetDeleter.COM ? I am not sure they handle DMs but I seem to recall their plan allowing you to keep an up-to-date archive. If they include DMs, maybe they tie the identity back to a handle via the API

@neilhimself @oligneisti should be able to assist with a blogpost

@neilhimself There's definitely something floating around for this on Mastodon

@neilhimself if you find out, could you please share your wisdom? Because this looks rather useless indeed...

@neilhimself if you live in EU, a GDOR request should do it

@neilhimself I deleted all my Twitter DMs going back to 2009, retaining any communicated contact information. My DMs included conversations with human rights activists, dissidents, journalists. I decided it was best to erase it as far as it was possible for me to do.

@neilhimself i bookmarked this https://github.com/timhutton/twitter-archive-parser which is indeed one of these things for turning the raw download data into something more useful but not sure its exactly it. I dont know why the recipient isn't part yr data - redaction? Wld you get it w a GDPR request? @tnhh @mikarv? Not that I expect Twitter to do much abt them now

@neilhimself Not currently, from what I've seen (I've checked all the tools available until now). Most handle only your tweets. The problem is, to get the DM info translated from the userId to a name, you'll probably need access to the Twitter API, which is an extra hassle (you have to sign up as a developer, get an API key, use that for your tool - but you cannot share it!).

@neilhimself I would be interested to know that as well!

@neilhimself I just boosted your post in the Infosec.exchange server… I am sure someone can help you there 😬
I could use that advice as well.

@neilhimself Can you open them and download each one seperately? I know it's a ridiculous amount of work but simultanously you could also decide which ones actually to keep. 🤔

@neilhimself I don't know if this works anymore because of the new CEO's view on "blotterware" but by request they should give it to you. Might take a few weeks instead of hours. Hope it helps.

You will get it in a chunk, and you have to do the archiving yourself.

https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-download-your-twitter-archive

@neilhimself looking for something that works.

BTW media is not downloaded, the data file only links to uploaded files in twitter.

You need this tool to parse data file and don't loose your images, etc

https://github.com/timhutton/twitter-archive-parser

@neilhimself
I suppose you could always go through the dms and send each of them a message with their username so that you have it when you back up. Either way associating users and dms should be the kind of thing a script kiddie could whip up in a couple hours. I know twitter broke third party dm backup tools that used to exist but if you already have a backup you just need to add a username. I'll look around.

@neilhimself "a very special kind of useless" ... words reserved for anniversaries and Twitter purchasers

@neilhimself I see it on the todo list (with a high priority if that's what the "#6" indicates) for this project. https://github.com/timhutton/twitter-archive-parser

@neilhimself Does Twitter now own our DMs? Or is there a way to download them that is not obvious to me?

It looks like it stores the user IDs, not the "@name" values. Mapping it to even a Twitter handle is impossible without the mapping data on twitter's servers.

Pretty useless, but I understand why they need to use an immutable value like that since people can and do change their handle.

@neilhimself somebody on a forum I frequent made a script recently to solve this very issue. It does require a Twitter API key, though.

https://knockout.chat/thread/43145/16#post-1568493

@neilhimself It's the same with your list of follows/followers - all it includes is a numeric user ID, no account information. Completely ridiculous.

Writing a script to retrieve the data should be simple enough, but you'd need to sign up at developer.twitter.com to get an API key so you could use it.

@neilhimself semiphemeral I think will both let you retrieve and download it and then delete it from the account

@neilhimself Just an addition to the existing replies that correctly note the numeric user id is in the data, you don't actually need an API key to translate the id into a name, as long as this continues to work:

https://twitter.com/intent/user?user_id=<USER_ID>

@neilhimself i don't know if you'll get answers for this but i'm really interested in such a solution too.

At least, if there would be a way to tag those conversations in the archive, with who twitter says it is when we open it directly on twitter ><...
We can do that by replying to each convo with the name of the recipient but it means to wake up some old/nasty ghosts, in the process of sending them a new MP ><...

@neilhimself I believe they download as part of everything else if you use the "Request Twitter Archive" feature in your Twitter account settings. Although, I've been hearing mixed feedback about if that feature even works still (it did for me two weeks ago).

@neilhimself From @timhutton https://github.com/timhutton/twitter-archive-parser​

@neilhimself there have been a number of suggestions of an app called Debirdify to assist with finding your Twitter peeps on Mastodon. I'm not sure whether it will capture your DMs, though.

@neilhimself https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-download-your-twitter-archive

Haven't tried it myself, but have heard from others that it works.

@neilhimself https://mathstodon.xyz/@timhutton/109316834651128246

@neilhimself I don't see anywhere in the data that it mentions any names. It has IDs and URLs embedded, but those depend on twitter continuing to function. I did not just point a browser at the HTML file, I went looking through the whole thing and found only the numeric IDs and userLink URLs that point back to twitter.

😭​

@neilhimself I heard for $8/month Twitter will be adding this as their "reverse verification" system. Instead of paying to verify who you are, everyone else will have to pay to know who they've been talking to.

@neilhimself Should be possible to parse ids from dm archive to account names, as https://github.com/swedishmike/twitter_dm_parser attempts, or directly via browser emulation, but riskier, see https://github.com/Mincka/DMArchiver (haven't tested both though)

@neilhimself Should be possible to parse ids from dm archive to account names, as https://github.com/swedishmike/twitter_dm_parser attempts, or directly via browser emulation, but riskier, see https://github.com/Mincka/DMArchiver (haven't tested both though)

@neilhimself - I am not sure when Mastodon will have a tool to import posts, but importing DMs is nigh impossible unless the @names are identical. It may be a good idea to backup your Twitter posts and messages using their own tools. I highly doubt they will shut down Twitter. They might rebrand it or resell it first. Here is a reference on how to download your own Twitter data: https://help.twitter.com/en/managing-your-account/how-to-download-your-twitter-archive

@neilhimself Honestly, why not just let it go? 2008? Come on man...

@neilhimself @ericmbudd just out out a great guide for this…

@neilhimself I wonder how long before Twitter crashes due to vast numbers of data downloads.

@neilhimself literally trying to figure out the same exact thing

@neilhimself That looks like an oversight in the export for sure. Do those accounts still exist on Twitter? If so, then that's most likely a bug!

@neilhimself try this article from Wirecutter at the NYT https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/how-to-archive-and-lock-down-your-twitter-data/

@neilhimself Sounds like you just have to have an eccentric memory for dates!

@neilhimself - this might help? My son wrote this today https://www.nytimes.com/wirecutter/blog/how-to-archive-and-lock-down-your-twitter-data/

@TenTonHeart
🔆 love from failladrum in these new streets.

@neilhimself I used the Tweetdeck app to have my conversations (DMs) sent to my email.