What happens to your X (Twitter) bookmarks when a tweet is deleted

Updated 2026-10-12

The short answer: an X bookmark is a pointer to someone else’s post, not a copy of it. When the post is deleted, the account is suspended, or it goes protected, the bookmark stops showing the post. X’s data archive does not list bookmarks among its contents, so there is no copy to go back to. To keep what you bookmark, you need to keep a copy yourself, at the moment you save.

What happens to a bookmark when the tweet goes

X says a deleted post is removed from the author’s account, their followers’ timelines, and search (X Help: delete posts). Its help center does not say what happens in other people’s bookmarks; in practice, people find the bookmark vanishes or shows as unavailable. The same goes for posts from suspended accounts, and from accounts that turn protected when you do not follow them. Either way the text, the pictures, and the thread you saved it for are no longer yours to read.

Why the archive does not help

X’s “Download an archive of your data” covers your profile, your posts, messages, media, followers, Lists, and more, but bookmarks are not on its list (X Help: download your archive). Even where an archive includes a link, a link to a deleted post leads nowhere.

Keeping a copy with Bookmark Hero

Bookmark Hero reads your X bookmarks and likes the way X’s own page does, with the login your browser already has, and stores each one in your browser: the text, the pictures, the links, the post it quoted, and the author’s thread. It re-checks the source now and then. When a post is gone from X, the shelf marks it and keeps your copy exactly as it was.

A bookmarked thread marked “Gone from X since Oct 12, 2026. Your copy is kept.” with its full text still on the shelf. — Deleted on X, kept on your shelf, with the date it disappeared.

Install Bookmark Hero and switch on X.
Browse X as usual. Your bookmarks and likes arrive on the shelf; the first time, it walks back through the ones you already have.
Search for anything you saved. To see only what has vanished from X, search is:unavailable.

With Pro, instant capture puts a bookmark on the shelf within seconds of clicking Bookmark on X, so even a post deleted minutes later is kept.

Things to know

A copy can only be made while the post exists. A post deleted before Bookmark Hero first saw it cannot be recovered.
Your copies live in your browser. Nothing is sent to us, and you can export all of it, free, as CSV, JSON, Markdown, or a bookmarks file (how).