Quick answer
Visit the Twitter/X profile in your browser, click the Bulk Image Downloader extension, and download all tweets' images as a ZIP. No account needed for public profiles.
Twitter accounts vanish. Users delete profiles, get suspended, go private, or simply quit the platform. If you follow a photographer, illustrator, or brand documenting something important, downloading their media locally is a smart insurance policy.
Why download from Twitter/X
X/Twitter content is volatile:
- Account deletion or suspension. One day a profile exists, the next it's gone.
- Tweet deletion. A creator might delete a thread of 20 images a week after posting.
- Going private. A public profile becomes followers-only; your access to media ends.
- Link rot. Images are hosted on X's servers; if the profile is deleted, images are deleted.
- Personal or business archive. Backing up your own tweet media before leaving the platform.
Bulk download is the only way to preserve a profile's full media catalog before it becomes inaccessible.
Download a public Twitter profile
- Open the Twitter/X profile in your browser (twitter.com/@username or x.com/@username).
- Click the "Media" tab on the profile to show only tweets with images.
- Scroll to the bottom of the profile to load all media tweets (X lazy-loads, so scroll until no more tweets appear).
- Click the Bulk Image Downloader extension icon.
- The extension lists all images from all visible tweets. Select "All" and download as ZIP.
The Media tab is essential; it filters out text-only tweets so you only download images. Without it, you are downloading very few images.
Handling retweets, replies, and quote tweets
Twitter/X media includes:
- Original tweets with images. Photos, screenshots, graphics the user posted themselves.
- Replies with images. Media in reply threads; extension downloads all of them.
- Retweets of other users' images. The extension downloads the original image, not from a retweet.
- Quote tweets with images. Both the original tweet's image and the quote comment's image are downloaded.
In practice, this means downloading a profile downloads a mix of original and shared media. If you want only the user's original content, you'd need to curate the downloaded ZIP manually afterward.
Account access: login required or not?
Public profiles can be viewed and downloaded without logging in. Your own profile or private (protected) accounts require login:
- Public profile, not logged in: You can download visible tweets and images.
- Your own protected profile: Log in, then the extension works normally.
- Someone else's protected profile: Only if you follow them and they approved your request. The extension respects Twitter's access rules.
Performance notes for large profiles
High-volume profiles (thousands of tweets) require patience:
- Scrolling takes time. Loading 5,000 tweets takes 20-30 minutes of browser scrolling.
- Browser memory. On older machines, loading 5,000+ images in memory may slow the browser.
- X rate-limiting. If you scroll too fast, X may ask you to slow down.
For heavy archiving, consider downloading in batches: Q1 posts one week, Q2 posts the next, etc.
At-a-glance comparison
| Tool | No login (public) | Media tab filtering | Handles quoted tweets | Speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bulk Image Downloader | Yes | User manual | Yes | Medium |
| twitter-media-downloader (CLI) | Yes | Yes | Yes | Fast |
| Archive.org snapshot | Yes | N/A | N/A | Instant (limited) |
| right-click save | Yes | No | No | Slow |
| Twitter's native archive | No | Yes | Yes | Medium |
