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User Guide

For now, this is X only. I want to add Instagram later; follow on Twitter for updates. Your X data is YOURS and it’s FREE—you just have to ask X for it.

Getting Your Data

  1. Go to Profile > More > Settings and Privacy > Download archive.
  2. X will acknowledge the request and send you a "READY" message in a day or two.
  3. When you have it, unzip the file and look in the Data directory to find following.js and follower.js.

Explore the Demo Data to understand how you can best use yours. The real system provides more detail than the simplified demo, including profile links and websites.

Analyzing Your Network

Ready? Go to GrabYourDataNow.com and follow these steps:

  1. Press the Find Out How Many button.
  2. Upload your follower and following files. Ensure you put the right file in the right box, though the system will spot errors if you mix them up.
  3. Analyze your counts:
    • Mutuals: People you follow who follow you back. These are absolute legends for collabs and advice. 90% of the time, MUTUALS are the people whose profile data you want.
    • Idols: People you follow who don’t follow you back. See FAQs before buying.
    • Fans: People who follow you, but you do not follow back. See FAQS before buying
  4. Download the ID lists.

Getting Full Profile Data

  1. If you like what you see, Home, Get Price
  2. Pick one of your ID files, Mutuals is the most useful.
  3. System will work out how much it will cost.
  4. Purchases are handled via Buy Me A Coffee or direct.

Once you purchase, I buy credits from X to cover the data costs. This is currently a manual process; I send keys daily, but sometimes life is busy, so allow two working days before chasing. Best way to reach me is Twitter, (follow me first, and for belt and braces, @me as well as DM), and include the email or Twitter you gave with your order.

IMPORTANT: Keep your key! Put your CSV file somewhere safe and only work with copies of that file.

Using the Additional Tools

All tools are located on the GrabYourDataNow.com front page. Use your ORIGINAL CSV data download for these.

FYI I have been experimenting with using AI directly on the CSV file, asking such things as, "find all the musicians in Sweden". The free ones are not very good yet, as they want to see the word musician or Sweden, but the paid for one - Gemini Pro anyway - was good, finding bios like "Malmo based flautist". Try it, esp if you hate sheets:-)

Infer Country

This tool identifies where your mutuals are based using location fields and profile text (clues like cities, countries, and flags). It understands language variations, like "Brasil" being Brazil. It adds a new column to your data to help you scan for relevant local contacts.

Create Categories

Create categories (e.g., "Musician") and search terms (e.g., "Guitarist", "Drummer") to help organize and sort your mutuals. This is perfect for sorting by category and country to find exactly who you need.

TIP: Save your Categories and Terms for future use. You can expand terms as needed, for example later deciding that Flutes matter, and adding Flute and Flautist to your Musicians.

Tidy Up

This tool converts your raw CSV into a nicely formatted Excel file with TWO sheets. Top sheet is the Full Version, but there is an At A Glance version which is useful for when you want to a simple sort such as Category and Country and will just eyeball the results. Excel doesn't support formatting in the free tools so you do need to Select the Bio column and format it to Word Wrap to see it properly.

Update Your Mutuals

When you want to update your list later, use this tool to compare your new archive with your old one. It identifies new mutuals and those you've lost, allowing you to request data only for the new ones—saving you money.

Purge Audit

When X does a purge of "bots and inauthentic accounts" it removes them from your followers list. But, is it ALSO removing real people? This allows you to see which IDs have been removed. You can them drop them into an existing profiles sheet and see who vanished, and were they real, or not.