Delete your tweets

This python script cleans up after you.

Why? I'll let others explain it better than I can.

Note: This is not about security. Deleting a Tweet doesn't not erase it from everywhere for all time. Tweets are being archived by the Library of Congress, for example.

Also note: This script only deletes from the 200 most recent tweets, so it won't clear your timeline all at once (at least not as-is). However, if you schedule it to run regularly, it will eventually work it's way back through your timeline, assuming you schedule it to run more frequently than you post 200 tweets.

Requirements

In order to use this script, you need:

• Python3
• requests and requests-oathlib
• Twitter credentials
• A way to schedule the script (eg. cron)

Step-by-step

Clone repo:

$ git clone ...
$ cd ...

Install Python3:

# MacOS X (with Homebrew)
$ brew install python3

# Ubuntu (you may need sudo)
$ apt-get install python3 python3-setuptools

Optional, but recommended, use virtualenv

$ virtualenv --python=python3 env
$ source env/bin/activate

Install Python libs:

(env)$ pip install -r requirements.txt

Copy the auth-template.py file to auth.py:

(env)$ cp auth-template.py auth.py

DO NOT PUT AUTH.PY UNDER SOURCE CONTROL. It's already in the .gitignore file, so you shouldn't have to worry about it, but be careful.

Get Twitter credentials:

• Login to Twitter.
• Visit http://apps.twitter.com.
• Click "Create New App".
• Give it a name, like "Delete my tweets," a description and URL. Then agree to the terms and conditions.
• Click on the "Keys and Access Tokens" tab.
• Copy the Consumer Key and Consumer Secret strings into the auth.py file.
• Click on the "Create my access token" button.
• Copy the Access Token and Access Token Secret strings into the auth.py file.

Edit the variables near the top of delete-tweets.py

### SETTINGS ###

screen_name = 'cmerrill'

# Time between delete requests, in seconds
# Minimum value is 5 in order to keep within Twitter API rate limits
rate_delay = 6

# Maximum age, in days, of tweets to keep
max_age_in_days = 30

# Minimum number of tweets to keep, regardless of age
min_tweets_to_keep = 10

# IDs of specific Tweets to keep
protected_tweets = [600437773242359808, ] 

Run the script:

# From within the virtualenv
(env)$ python delete_tweets.py

# Without the virtualenv (in cron, for example)
# Assumes your virtualenv binaries are in the repository directory
$ /path/to/repo/env/bin/python /path/to/repo/delete_tweets.py

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Curt Merrill

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.