How I Built a Twitter Thread Scraper in 5 Simple Steps

Twitter (X) threads have become a primary format for sharing knowledge. Some of the best essays on the internet are actually just 20 tweets strung together.

But reading them on Twitter is painful. Ads, distractions, and the "Show more" button break the flow.

Tools like ThreadReaderApp solve this, but what if you want to build your own? Maybe you want to:

• Automatically save threads to Notion.
• Convert your own threads into LinkedIn carousels.
• Turn threads into SEO-optimized blog posts.

In this tutorial, we'll build a simple Node.js script that takes a Tweet URL and returns a clean, formatted article.

The Problem: The "X" API

Elon Musk's changes to the X API made it incredibly expensive ($100/mo for basic access) and rate-limited. It's hard to justify for a side project.

SociaVault's Twitter API is the workaround. It scrapes the public web view of the tweet, costing fractions of a penny per thread.

Looking for Twitter data solutions? See our Twitter/X API alternatives guide.

Step 1: Get the Main Tweet

A thread starts with a single tweet. We need to fetch it to get the author and the first part of the text.

const API_KEY = 'YOUR_SOCIAVAULT_API_KEY';
const TWEET_ID = '1758529912345678900'; // ID from URL

async function getTweet(id) {
  const url = `https://api.sociavault.com/v1/scrape/twitter/tweet?tweetId=${id}`;
  const res = await fetch(url, { headers: { 'Authorization': `Bearer ${API_KEY}` } });
  return (await res.json()).data;
}

Step 2: Fetch the Replies (The Thread)

This is the tricky part. A "thread" is just a series of replies from the same author to themselves.

SociaVault's endpoint returns the conversation tree. We need to filter it.

async function getThread(mainTweetId) {
  const mainTweet = await getTweet(mainTweetId);
  const authorId = mainTweet.user.id;
  
  // Get conversation
  const conversation = await getConversation(mainTweetId); // Hypothetical helper
  
  // Filter: Only replies by the original author
  const threadTweets = conversation.replies.filter(reply => 
    reply.user.id === authorId
  );
  
  // Sort by time to ensure correct order
  threadTweets.sort((a, b) => new Date(a.created_at) - new Date(b.created_at));
  
  return [mainTweet, ...threadTweets];
}

Step 3: Parse and Format

Now we have an array of tweet objects. Let's turn them into Markdown.

function toMarkdown(tweets) {
  let md = `# ${tweets[0].text.substring(0, 50)}...\n\n`;
  md += `**Author:** @${tweets[0].user.screen_name}\n\n`;
  
  tweets.forEach((tweet, index) => {
    // Remove t.co links (optional)
    const cleanText = tweet.text.replace(/https:\/\/t.co\/\w+/g, '');
    
    md += `${cleanText}\n\n`;
    
    // Handle Images
    if (tweet.media && tweet.media.length > 0) {
      tweet.media.forEach(img => {
        md += `![Image](${img.url})\n\n`;
      });
    }
  });
  
  return md;
}

Step 4: Save to File

const fs = require('fs');

async function saveThread(url) {
  const id = url.split('/').pop();
  const tweets = await getThread(id);
  const markdown = toMarkdown(tweets);
  
  fs.writeFileSync(`thread_${id}.md`, markdown);
  console.log('Thread saved!');
}

Step 5: Automate It

You can wrap this in a simple Express server or a Telegram bot.

• User: Sends link to bot.
• Bot: Scrapes thread -> Converts to PDF -> Sends back PDF.

Conclusion

Building a thread scraper doesn't require a $5,000/month Enterprise API plan. With SociaVault, you can access the public conversation on X affordably and reliably.

Start building your reader: Get your API Key