We've been living with social media for a long time now (facebook opened to the public in 2006) and that means a long trail of posts stretching back several years. While this allows you to take a nostalgic trip down memory lane with just a few clicks, it can also bring back some embarrassing and uncomfortable memories.
Maybe your twitter posts from 10 years ago haven't aged well, or you have an ex-partner you'd rather not remember, or you're heading into a job interview and don't want potential employers to judge who you are now based on your social media posts from decades ago.
Whatever the reason, you can find and delete old social media posts without too much difficulty using the web or mobile apps. (They say everything on the Internet is forever, of course, but you can do your best to at least mute your mistakes a bit. Who knows? Maybe your potential new boss has never heard of it.) The time Machine.) We've included instructions for facebook, x, and instagram, as these are the places where you're most likely to have posted content that you've long forgotten about.
facebook is about to celebrate 20 years of being available to anyone with an email address, so let's start there. If you were around when facebook first came out, you'll remember that personal status updates were much more common than they are now; people even used to write on each other's profiles, MySpace-style.
- Select your name (on the left) to view your profile.
- At the top of the column with your posts listed (just below the What do you have in mind? field), find and click on the Filters button.
- Use the Gonna Drop-down menu to find the year you joined facebook. (Don't remember when you joined? We'll tell you how to find that information in a moment.)
- Click Made to see publications from that year.
You can also review your posts on mobile.
- Open your facebook profile in the mobile app.
- Scroll down to your posts and find (and tap) the Filters Link on the right.
- With mobile devices, it's a little more complicated: you can't just jump to specific years, you have to scroll through a calendar.
Don't remember when you joined facebook? That's something you can find out, although the process is a bit complicated:
- Open facebook and click on your profile picture.
- Select Settings & Privacy > Settings.
- Look for the Account Center on the right side of your page. Select it and then go to Your information and permissions > Access your information > Personal information.
- The date your account was created will be the first thing that appears Profile information.
- Select your profile picture in the top right corner.
- Gonna Settings & Privacy > Settings > Account Center > Your Information & Permissions > Accessing Your Information > Personal Information.
- As with the web version, if you search Profile informationYou will see the date you created your account.
If you have a lot of posts to filter, you can use other filters (like month) to narrow down your results. If you see something you want to delete, just click the three dots next to it and then click Delete message.
x / twitter
x, formerly known as twitter, can often be a place for opinions and commentary, and it's possible — even likely — that some of it has aged better than others. If you want to take a trip down memory lane (and assuming you haven't deactivated your account yet), you can get to your older tweets in a few ways, but using the platform's built-in search engine is the easiest.
- Guy (from:username) to:yyyy-mm-dd from:yyyy-mm-dd in the search box at the top of the page.
- Change the username to your x handle, adjust the dates, and then press Get into.
- Click on the Latest Tab at the top to sort posts chronologically.
To delete a tweet, click the three dots next to it and then click Delete.
If you don't remember when you first joined, go to your ProfileThe date you joined should be below your description.
If you want to use the mobile app for x, you can use the same search terms listed above to find your tweets. Just tap the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen to access the search box.
instagram is only a few years behind facebook and x when it comes to seniority, first appearing publicly in 2010. That’s a lot of years for photos and videos to pile up in your public feed, even if much of instagram activity is centered on Stories, which automatically disappear.
In this case, it is best to use the instagram app on your mobile:
- Tap your profile picture (bottom right).
- Tap the three horizontal lines (top right).
- Choose Your activity > Publications.
- Tap From newest to oldest and change it to From oldest to newest.
Your first instagram posts will appear at the top of the screen. If you want to be more specific in your search, tap the icon All the dates drop-down menu, which allows you to search for instagram posts within a specific date range.
If you see something you'd rather not have on your instagram profile, tap the post, tap the three dots in the top right corner, and then choose DeleteThe same menu allows you to archive a post, which means you can still see it (and all the comments and likes), but it will be hidden from everyone else.
