If yous are a digital analyst, you lot may exist having a bad 24-hour interval today. Lots of folks are logging into Twitter analytics this week to find that the "Export Data" push nosotros all know and depend upon has been disabled.

Wracked past a cursory bit of despair, I did what every bootstrapping techno-vet of the non-profit sector would do: I tried to notice away around it.

[Update eight/three/2018: This post has become a lightning rod for folks with all kinds of Twitter export woes. What follows was a solution to one type of problem, but if it doesn't solve yours delight @byrdkrueger me on Twitter and I'd exist happy to conversation nigh your struggle, or follow me while I work on a follow-up about more ways to get at your information]

[Update one/31/2020: If the workaround below doesn't work for you, hither is a follow-on post that explores other methods of getting data out of Twitter. Some of these might aid yous become around your problem today, while others will requite you new data splicing skills to first doing more than with Twitter exports. I'g as well calculation in an of import particular many miss in configuring exports as a new offset department of this post on solving disabled exports]

Check your date ranges

When I originally posted this article, the export button was broken no affair what, but even now that it'south "fixed" it continues to crusade a lot of trouble for folks. My new hypothesis is that many of the people who take found their way to this mail are trying to prepare a quarterly, because they are so mutual across industries, and because Twitter Analytics' user interface steers you lot right into a trap. Check the prototype on my tweet below to see what I mean:

The online dashboard for Twitter Analytics volition happily let you to view upwardly to 91 days of information at a time, which entices y'all into thinking it'll exist like shooting fish in a barrel to utilize information for a full quarter, but the download characteristic is capped at 31 days, so when you lot become to click the button you observe the twitter export not working. This is a pain, but yous can get through calendar month by month and run up your CSVs back together in Excel, yous can bank check my other mail service on third party tools to export this kind of data more systematically, or you lot can keep reading to learn the trick that plain keeps working.

The original …creative workaround

A MAJOR CAVEAT Before You lot READ ANY FURTHER:

I am non recommending that you apply this approach, only raising it for discussion!

  • I practice not know why Twitter disabled the export push.
  • I have found a way to become around this disabled button, but I cannot promise that the resulting data is reliable (this might exist why they disabled the push), so take this method with a grain of salt, and be sure to validate your results for "reasonableness."
  • Twitter disabled the export push, and this method undoes that. Therefore it is doing something Twitter did non intend for yous to practise… accept that as you will.

image of twitter export hack

That existence said, hither is the way to get at what you lot need to exercise your jobs today!

  1. Open Twitter Analytics in Chrome browser, or whatever browser with an analog to the "Audit" tool.
  2. Notice your disabled "Export button," which is all grayness and unclickable.
  3. Right click on the button and select the "Audit" choice, which volition open the current page'southward HTML with the "export" div selected.
  4. Click the piddling grey arrow on the highlighted line to view the "<push button" tag within.
  5. In this tag, you will run across the disabled aspect (disabled="disabled"). Double-click to edit the text, and remove this attribute entirely.
  6. Yous should now see your button is enabled, in total contrast black and grey, and very much clickable.
  7. Click information technology, wait (a little longer than usual) and your CSV file should download as normal!

I briefly checked my resulting file in Excel to verify that all the tweets were there, and the impressions and engagement numbers matched those in the analytics UI!

I reiterate my cautions and caveats from above, but otherwise: Happy analyzing.