Some Twitter users on iOS are starting to get access to a feature that makes it easy to search an individual user’s tweets. For those with access, when you navigate to a user’s profile, you’ll see a search icon in the top right corner of the screen on the user’s profile banner, next to the three-dot menu. Then, you can type in keywords to search the user’s tweets. Twitter told TechCrunch that this feature is available to all global users on iOS and will continue to slowly roll out on web and Android.
It was already possible to perform searches like this on Twitter — you just needed to know how to format an advanced search. So, if you search “from:@TechCrunch Twitter,” for example, you’ll be able to see all TechCrunch tweets containing the word “Twitter,” regardless of whether you have access to the new search feature. Twitter’s longstanding advanced search feature can be accessed by searching for something, then clicking the three-dot menu next to the search bar on the web. You can filter searches by date, by the amount of engagement and more.
Still, this easily accessible search button makes it easier to find tweets from a specific user — so, using the same example, if you didn’t know how to perform an advanced search, it would be much easier to use the search button to look for “Twitter” on TechCrunch’s account, rather than scrolling through dozens of daily tweets to find what you’re looking for.
Of course, it’s possible that this feature could make it easier for people to dig up others’ old, troublesome tweets. But, as always, it’s a great social media strategy to just not tweet potentially harmful content in the first place (also, delete old tweets).