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Find that old tweet! Twitter launches archive tool

Posted at 9:45 PM, Dec 19, 2012
and last updated 2012-12-19 21:45:59-05

(CNN) — Having trouble remembering how you worded that awesomely clever late-night Twitter post from last New Year’s Eve?

Curious about what your first tweet was? Or what you were saying at other specific times in the site’s six-year history?

Twitter is making it a lot easier to do so.

On Wednesday, the site announced that users will be able to download their entire personal Twitter archive. That includes their tweets and retweets, and there will be tools to let users search them by date, keywords, hashtags or @usernames.

“You make Twitter what it is. And if you tweet, you may have found yourself wanting to go back in time and explore your past Tweets,” Mollie Vandor of Twitter’s engineering team wrote in a blog post. “Maybe you wanted to recall your reaction to the 2008 election, reminisce on what you said to your partner on your 10th anniversary or just see your first few Tweets.”

According to Twitter, a small percentage of users who have their language set to English have already gotten the tool. It will be rolling out to all users over the coming weeks and months, according to the blog post.

To look for the archive tool, go to Settings and scroll to the bottom. If the feature is enabled, users will have the option to request their archive there.

Users will receive an e-mail with instructions on how to access the archive once it’s been downloaded.

The archive tool was a result of one of Twitter’s quarterly “Hack Weeks,” during which employees take breaks from their regular jobs to work on new and innovative projects of their choosing.