Setup guide

X archive download and preparation guide

Archive quality determines cleanup quality. If your archive is incomplete, your deletion passes become incomplete. This guide shows the exact preparation workflow before running any destructive operation.

1. Request your archive from account settings

In X settings, request your account archive and wait for completion email. Download the ZIP and keep the original copy untouched. Work from an extracted copy so you can recover if needed.

2. Extract and inspect folder structure

After extraction, verify you can access the core data files used for cleanup, including posts and likes exports. Keep file names unchanged to avoid parser issues.

• Post history file set
• Likes history file set
• Metadata and account descriptors

3. Keep a read-only archive backup

Save one archive copy in a read-only location. This protects your source data when testing different cleanup modes and gives you a baseline for verification.

4. Prepare authenticated request material

Archive files identify target IDs, but execution still requires valid authenticated session context from your own account environment. Keep those session exports private and never share them publicly.

5. Run a dry validation pass first

Validate paths and file readability before deletion. A good validation stage should catch missing files, malformed inputs, and headers issues early.

6. Start with scoped mode before full mode

Instead of running full reset immediately, begin with a narrower mode (for example posts-only) to validate your environment and logs, then continue with full passes.

7. Document your run inputs

Record which archive snapshot and which run mode you used. This makes later validation and support faster, especially for large profiles.