How to back up your X bookmarks

To back up your X (Twitter) bookmarks you need a third-party tool, because X gives you nothing: the official data archive leaves bookmarks out entirely, there's no export button anywhere in the product, and a bookmark is only a pointer that dies when its post does. The good news is that a real backup takes about ten minutes with a free browser extension, and an automatic one costs less than most subscriptions. Here's how to back up X bookmarks, from quick to industrial.

Why bookmarks need their own backup

Three facts make this a genuine problem rather than hoarder anxiety.

First, the data archive X builds for you, the one under Settings, covers posts, likes, DMs, and follower lists, but has never included bookmarks.

I've detailed its contents in what's actually in your X data archive.

Second, bookmarks erode on their own. When an author deletes a post, protects their account, or gets suspended, every bookmark pointing at that post breaks, and X drops it silently. Your list shrinks without telling you, a pattern I've broken down in why your X bookmarks disappeared.

Third, retrieval has a documented edge: X's API returns at most your 800 most recent saves, and the app's behavior on very old bookmarks is unreliable.

The longer you wait, the more of your list sits beyond easy reach.

So the plan is simple: get a copy now, then keep it current.

The free route: a one-time extension export

Browser extensions read your bookmarks page as it loads and hand you a file. For a first backup:

1. Install a reputable exporter in a desktop Chromium browser. XSaved is free and local-first, with JSON and CSV downloads; Twillot's free tier downloads PDF, Markdown, JSON, or CSV.

2. Open x.com/i/bookmarks and let the extension index the list. On a big list, scroll to the bottom so it sees everything the page will load.

3. Download both JSON and CSV. JSON keeps the richer structure; CSV opens anywhere.

4. Put the files somewhere durable: cloud drive, a notes system, or wherever your other backups live. A file that only exists in your Downloads folder isn't a backup yet.

Ten minutes, zero dollars, and the worst-case loss story now ends at "since my last export" instead of "everything". The full tool-by-tool comparison is in how to export your X bookmarks.

The automatic route: continuous sync

One-time exports go stale the day after you make them. If you bookmark daily, put software on the job:

Dewey Pro ($10 a month, or $7.50 monthly billed annually) syncs new saves automatically, keeps them searchable with tags and notes, and offers downloads as CSV, searchable PDF, or Google Sheets, including media files. There's also a $225 lifetime plan and a $50 Export Pass for a 48-hour one-shot.

Tweetsmash takes the pipeline approach: its $49 one-time Exports Pass auto-exports new bookmarks for 365 days into Notion, Google Sheets, or Zotero, and the $99 a year plan keeps that running with thread unrolling and labels.

XSaved, though manual-first, keeps a local cache as you use X, which means posts deleted later survive in your browser copy; you still want to download files periodically since the cache lives on one machine.

Sync services that use the official API inherit the 800 most recent window, so start with the extension export above if your backlog is bigger, then let sync handle everything new.

The developer route: a script and a cron job

If you're comfortable with an API key, X's v2 bookmarks endpoint plus a scheduled script gives you a backup you fully control: fetch on a schedule with an OAuth user token and the bookmark.read scope, page through results, and append anything new to your own storage. The same 800 most recent cap applies, but a script that runs daily will capture every save long before it approaches the window's edge. This is the most durable option and the least convenient one; nobody should do it who wouldn't enjoy it.

What a good backup actually contains

Whichever route you take, check the output for four things: the post text, the author handle, the date, and the URL. Text is the part that survives deletion; URLs alone are the weakest backup, because they point at posts that may stop existing. Media is the usual gap, since most exports store links rather than files, so screenshot or download anything irreplaceable. And test the restore path once: open the CSV, search it, make sure future-you can actually use it.

The old 3-2-1 backup rule translates cleanly here: three copies of the list (X itself, your export file, your sync service), two formats, one of them somewhere other than the machine that made it.

For choosing tools beyond backup, my rankings are in the best X bookmark managers, and the whole series lives on the X bookmark guides hub.

A closing word on where Bookmarx fits, since I work on it: Bookmarx syncs each new bookmark via the official X API from the moment you connect and keeps its own copy of the text plus an AI summary, so later deletions don't empty your library. It has no export and no reach into your pre-connection backlog, so it's the continuous half of a backup strategy, not the whole one. Do the ten-minute export above either way.

Frequently asked questions

Does X back up my bookmarks anywhere?

No. There's no restore feature, bookmarks aren't in the official data archive, and a bookmark stores no copy of the post. When a bookmarked post is deleted or its author is suspended, X has nothing to give back to you.

How often should I back up my bookmarks?

If you save daily, monthly exports are a reasonable floor and an automatic sync service is better. The practical rule: the gap between backups is the number of saves you're willing to lose.

Will a backup include images and video?

Usually not the files themselves. Most exports store text, author, date, and links, with media as URLs that die if the post does. Dewey's export includes associated media files, and XSaved's local cache keeps what it has seen, but check before you rely on either.

Is Bookmarx a backup tool?

Partly, and it's honest to be precise: Bookmarx keeps its own copy of the text and an AI summary of each bookmark it syncs after you connect, so later deletions don't empty your library. It has no export and can't reach saves from before you connected, so pair it with a file export for a true backup.