How to find an old post on x.com you only half remember
You saw it months ago, it was funny or important, and now it is gone from your feed. Scrolling will not bring it back. Working through what you remember, in the right order, usually will.
Start with what you remember
Before searching, write down what you know, even if it is vague. Almost every memory of a post falls into a few kinds of clue:
- Who: the account, or at least the kind of account (a journalist, a football club, a friend).
- When: a season, a year, an event it was about.
- What: a word or two that must have been in it, or the topic.
- What it looked like: a photo, a video, a link, a screenshot of text.
- How big it was: did it go viral, or did it have three likes?
Each of these maps to a search operator. The more of them you can fill in, the shorter the list you end up reading.
Step 1: check your own likes and bookmarks
If you liked or bookmarked the post, it is still in your account. Open your profile and the Likes tab, or Bookmarks in the menu. Both are in reverse order, newest first. If you liked it a year ago that is a long scroll, so it is worth trying a search first and coming back here if it fails.
Step 2: search by account and date
If you know who posted it, this is the most powerful combination:
from:username since:2024-03-01 until:2024-05-01
Make the date range generous at first; memory for dates is poor. Open the Latest tab so results are in time order rather than chosen for you, then add one remembered word at a time until the list is short.
If you remember it as a reply in a conversation, add filter:replies; if it was an original post, add -filter:replies.
Step 3: search by what it looked like
Visual memory is often stronger than words. If it had a picture, add filter:images; a video, filter:videos; a link to a news site, url: and the site's address, for example url:bbc.co.uk. Combined with an account and a date range, this alone often narrows the results to a few dozen.
Step 4: use popularity
If the post was widely shared, minimum engagement filters cut out everything else: min_faves:1000 or min_retweets:200. Start high and lower the number until the post appears. This works especially well for posts about a news event, where thousands of small posts drown out the one you want.
Step 5: try different words
People usually remember the meaning of a post, not its exact words. If "the train was late again" finds nothing, try the distinctive words separately: train late, then synonyms: (train OR metro) (late OR delayed). Check the language too: if the account posts in two languages, search both, or add lang:.
Step 6: your own posts, from your archive
For your own posts and replies, the most complete record is your archive. On x.com go to Settings, then Your account, then Download an archive of your data. It takes a day or more to be prepared. The archive contains every post you wrote, with dates, and you can search it on your computer with the browser's find function.
When x.com search cannot find it
- The account went private. Protected posts are only visible to approved followers, and search does not show them to anyone else.
- The post was deleted or the account suspended. It is gone from x.com. A copy may survive on the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine if someone saved the page: paste the account's profile address into web.archive.org and look at snapshots from the right time.
- It was quoted somewhere else. Viral posts are often embedded in news articles. A web search with a remembered phrase and the account name can find an article that embeds it.
A worked example
Say you remember: "A science account posted a photo of the sun with a planet in front of it, maybe spring last year, and lots of people shared it."
- Who: probably
from:nasa. - What it looked like:
filter:images. - When:
since:2025-03-01 until:2025-07-01. - How big:
min_faves:5000. - One word:
sun.
Together: from:nasa sun filter:images min_faves:5000 since:2025-03-01 until:2025-07-01. If that is empty, remove sun first, then widen the dates.
Writing these by hand is fiddly. PostFinder does this translation for you: type the description in plain words and it builds the search and opens it on x.com. For the full list of operators, see the x.com search operators cheat sheet.