Straight answer: yes, X (still called Twitter by most of us out of habit) keeps a record of what you watch, for how long you watched it, and uses that to build an interest profile it shows to advertisers and, since 2023, feeds into training its own AI, Grok. You can see a version of this record yourself in under two minutes, and you can turn most of the tracking off, but you can’t delete what’s already been collected.
What “watch history” covers on X
People assume watch history means a neat list, like the one you get on YouTube where you can scroll back through every video you’ve clicked. X doesn’t give you that. There’s no page called “Watch History” sitting in your settings menu. What X has instead is quieter and, honestly, more useful to them: it logs viewership signals in the background every time a video autoplays or you tap to expand one, then folds those signals into your ad interest profile rather than showing them to you as a browsable list.
That distinction matters. A visible history you can delete feels manageable. An invisible one that only shows up as “you seem to like content about property investing” or “you seem to like football” feels like something is happening to you rather than something you’re doing.
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The specific data points X collects when you watch
Based on X’s own privacy policy and the data export it lets you request, here’s what gets logged against a video view:
- Whether the video autoplayed in your timeline or you tapped it deliberately
- How long you watched, sometimes down to the second, which is how X calculates “completion rate” for advertisers
- Your device type, screen size, and connection speed at the time
- Your approximate location, usually to city or region level, based on IP address
- Whether you replayed, muted, liked, or shared it
- What account posted it, and whether you follow that account
None of that appears in a friendly list on your screen. It sits in X’s ad system as “inferred interests,” which you can view (partially) under Settings and privacy, then Privacy and safety, then Ads preferences. What you’ll see there isn’t the raw data, it’s the conclusions X drew from it: things like “Sports,” “Small business,” “Home improvement.” I’ve gone through this on client accounts and the categories are often shockingly accurate, which tells you the underlying tracking is more granular than the tidy labels suggest.
How long the data sits there
X’s privacy policy states that engagement and usage data, including video view signals, can be retained for up to 18 months after collection for advertising purposes, though some data used for safety and legal compliance is kept longer. There’s no fixed public number for exactly how long an individual video view stays attached to your profile, which is itself worth sitting with: the company that decides how long your data lives is the same company deciding what you see next.
Here’s the step-by-step if you want to see what X holds on you right now:
- Go to Settings and privacy
- Tap Your account
- Tap Download an archive of your data
- Verify your identity (X asks for your password again here)
- Wait for the email, which typically arrives within 24 hours but can take longer on busier days
- Open the archive and look in the folder for “ad-impressions” and “personalization”
I did this myself in early 2026 for a client account we manage, mostly out of curiosity after a follower asked me straight out whether Twitter was “spying on their scrolling.” The archive included a spreadsheet of ad impressions with timestamps going back roughly ten months, and a separate file listing inferred interests that included categories we’d never posted about directly, things the account had only ever watched, not engaged with. That’s the part that made me pause. Watching, without liking or commenting, was still enough to build a profile.
The bit that makes people uncomfortable once they think it through
Most privacy write-ups stop at “here’s how to turn off personalised ads,” as if that solves it. It doesn’t, and I think it’s worth saying plainly: turning off ad personalisation stops X from showing you interest-based ads, it does not stop X from collecting the underlying watch data in the first place. The toggle changes what happens to the data after collection, not whether collection happens. If you want zero video-view logging, the only real option is watching fewer videos on the platform, which for most of us defeats the point of being on it at all.
There’s also a newer wrinkle that changed the whole conversation. Since 2023, X’s privacy policy explicitly allows public posts and interactions, which includes video engagement patterns, to be used to train Grok, xAI’s chatbot. So your watch behaviour isn’t just shaping the ads you see anymore, it’s potentially shaping the responses an AI gives to someone else entirely. Very few articles on this topic mention that shift, and it changes the stakes from “annoying targeted ads” to “my scrolling habits are training data for a product I never agreed to use.”
What this means in practice, not in theory
For an ordinary person scrolling before bed, the practical risk is low but not zero. The worst case for most of us is an accurately targeted ad that feels a bit too knowing. But there are two groups where the stakes rise: people who use X to research sensitive topics they’d rather keep private, and businesses running accounts where staff logins mean the “personal” watch history is a shared company signal. I’ve seen the second one cause real confusion with clients, where an intern’s late-night scrolling shaped the ad profile of a brand account for weeks before anyone noticed.
If your business runs an X account and you’re also dealing with the platform’s newer age verification requirements, it’s worth knowing the two systems are connected under the hood. Age checks, watch data, and ad personalisation all feed the same profile X builds around an account, business or personal.
I’ve written a more technical companion piece that goes deeper into exactly what X really logs at the API and settings level, if you want the fuller breakdown of the mechanics rather than the privacy angle.
Three settings to change today
These take about two minutes combined and reduce what gets collected going forward, even though they won’t touch what’s already stored:
- Turn off personalised ads: Settings and privacy, Privacy and safety, Ads preferences, then switch off “Personalisation and data”
- Turn off off-X activity tracking: same menu, look for “Off-X activity” and disable it, this stops X linking your behaviour on other apps and sites to your profile
- Disable autoplay: Settings and privacy, Accessibility, display and languages, Data usage, then set Video autoplay to Never, which cuts down how many “views” get logged from videos you never chose to watch in the first place
That last one is underrated. A huge share of “watch history” on X isn’t deliberate viewing at all, it’s videos that autoplayed for three seconds while you scrolled past. Turning autoplay off means fewer accidental data points attributed to you as genuine interest.
How X compares to other platforms doing the same thing
It’s worth saying X isn’t uniquely aggressive here, it’s just less transparent about showing you the result. If you’ve read anything about how Threads differs from Instagram, you’ll know Meta’s platforms at least surface a visible “Your Activity” log where you can scroll and delete individual views. X gives you the archive request instead, which is technically more complete but far less convenient, and I’d bet fewer than one in a hundred users has ever requested it.
If you manage multiple accounts through third-party tools, like scheduling and engagement apps, it’s also worth checking what those tools can see. Something like Instazood for managing Twitter accounts connects via API access that can touch the same engagement data X itself logs, so understanding one system helps you understand the other.
The part regulators care about more than you might
Under GDPR, which applies to anyone in the UK or EU using X, you have the right to request a full copy of your data and, separately, to request deletion. The General Data Protection Regulation covers exactly this kind of behavioural profiling, and X’s own policy acknowledges these rights in its privacy documentation. Requesting deletion of your ad and viewing profile is a separate request from the standard data archive download, and X’s support pages walk through the form, though in my experience it takes closer to 30 days than the “up to a month” the policy states.
Frequently asked questions
Does Twitter show me a list of videos I’ve watched, like YouTube does?
No, X doesn’t have a visible watch history page. It logs viewing data in the background and turns it into ad interest categories you can see under Ads preferences, but there’s no scrollable list of individual videos you’ve watched.
Can I delete my watch history on X?
You can request deletion of your data profile through X’s privacy settings or by contacting support directly, but there’s no self-serve “clear history” button. Deletion requests typically take around 30 days to process, based on my own experience filing one for a client account.
Does turning off personalised ads stop Twitter from tracking what I watch?
No, and this is the part most guides skip. Turning off ad personalisation stops X from using the data to target ads at you, it does not stop X from collecting the underlying viewing data in the first place.
Is my watch data on X used to train Grok or other AI tools?
Since a 2023 policy update, X’s privacy policy allows public posts and interactions, including video engagement, to be used to train Grok, xAI’s chatbot. Users are opted in by default and need to actively check their data sharing settings to limit this.
