Getting started with the Retweets lookup endpoint
This quick start guide will help you make your first request to the Retweets lookup endpoint using Postman. If you would like to see sample code in different languages, please visit our X API v2 sample code GitHub repository.
Prerequisites
To complete this guide, you will need to have a set of keys and tokens to authenticate your request. You can generate these keys and tokens by following these steps:
- Sign up for a developer account and receive approval.
- Create a Project and an associated developer App in the developer portal.
- Navigate to your App's “Keys and tokens” page to generate the required credentials. Make sure to save all credentials in a secure location.
Steps to build a Retweets lookup request
Step one: Start with a tool or library
There are several different tools, code examples, and libraries that you can use to make a request to this endpoint, but we will use the Postman tool here to simplify the process.
To load the X API v2 Postman collection into your environment, please click on the following button:
Once you have the X API v2 collection loaded in Postman, navigate to the "Retweets" folder and select "Retweeted by.”
Step two: Authenticate your request
To properly make a request to the X API, you need to verify that you have permission. To do so, this endpoint requires you to authenticate your request with either OAuth 2.0 App-Only, OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code with PKCE, or OAuth 1.0a User Context authentication methods.
For simplicity's sake, we will utilize OAuth 2.0 App-Only with this request, but you will need to use one of the other authentication methods if you'd like to request private metrics or Retweets.
To utilize OAuth 2.0 App-Only, you must add your keys and tokens, specifically the App Access Token (also known as the App-only Bearer Token) to Postman. You can do this by selecting the environment named “X API v2” in the top-right corner of Postman and adding your keys and tokens to the "initial value" and "current value" fields (by clicking the eye icon next to the environment dropdown).
These variables will automatically be pulled into the request's authorization tab if you've done this correctly.
Step three: Specify a Post
With this endpoint, you must specify the Post ID that you want to get Retweeting users of. You can find the ID of a Post by navigating to that Post on X and pulling the numerical code at the end of the URL. For example, the following URL's Post ID is 1354143047324299264.
https://twitter.com/TwitterDev/status/1354143047324299264
In Postman, navigate to the "Params" tab and enter this username into the "Value" column of the id path variable (at the bottom of the section), making sure to not include any spaces before or after usernames.
| Key | Value |
id |
The Post ID you want to get the Reweeting users of |
Step four: Identify and specify which fields you would like to retrieve
If you click the "Send" button after step three, you will receive the default user object fields in your response: id, name, and username.
If you would like to receive additional fields beyond id, name, and username, you will have to specify those fields in your request with the fields and/or expansions parameters.
For this exercise, we will request three additional sets of fields from different objects:
- The additional user.created_at field in the primary user objects.
- The associated pinned Posts’ object’s default fields for the returned users: id and text.
- The additional tweet.created_at field in the associated Post objects.
In Postman, navigate to the "Params" tab and add the following key:value pair to the "Query Params" table:
Key |
Value |
Returned fields |
user.fields |
created_at |
user.created_at |
expansions |
pinned_tweet_id |
tweet.id, tweet.text |
tweet.fields |
created_at |
tweet.created_at |
You should now see the following URL next to the "Send" button:
https://api.x.com/2/tweets/1354143047324299264/retweeted_by?user.fields=created_at&expansions=pinned_tweet_id&tweet.fields=created_at
Step five: Make your request and review your response
Once you have everything set up, hit the "Send" button and you will receive a similar response to the following example response:
{
"data": [
{
"created_at": "2008-12-04T18:51:57.000Z",
"id": "17874544",
"username": "TwitterSupport",
"name": "Twitter Support"
},
{
"created_at": "2007-02-20T14:35:54.000Z",
"id": "783214",
"username": "Twitter",
"name": "Twitter"
},
{
"pinned_tweet_id": "1389270063807598594",
"created_at": "2018-11-21T14:24:58.000Z",
"id": "1065249714214457345",
"username": "TwitterSpaces",
"name": "Spaces"
},
{
"pinned_tweet_id": "1293595870563381249",
"created_at": "2007-05-23T06:01:13.000Z",
"id": "6253282",
"username": "TwitterAPI",
"name": "Twitter API"
}
],
"includes": {
"tweets": [
{
"created_at": "2021-05-03T17:26:09.000Z",
"id": "1389270063807598594",
"text": "now, everyone with 600 or more followers can host a Space.\n\nbased on what we've learned, these accounts are likely to have a good experience hosting because of their existing audience. before bringing the ability to create a Space to everyone, we’re focused on a few things. 🧵"
},
{
"created_at": "2020-08-12T17:11:04.000Z",
"id": "1293595870563381249",
"text": "Twitter API v2: Early Access released\n\nToday we announced Early Access to the first endpoints of the new Twitter API!\n\n#TwitterAPI #EarlyAccess #VersionBump https://t.co/g7v3aeIbtQ"
}
]
}
}