Conversation ID

Track and reconstruct conversation threads

Every reply on X belongs to a conversation thread. The conversation_id field lets you identify, track, and reconstruct entire conversation trees.

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How it works

When someone posts and others reply, all replies share the same conversation_id—the ID of the original post that started the conversation.

Original post (ID: 1234567890)  ← conversation_id for all replies
├── Reply 1 (ID: 1234567891)    → conversation_id: 1234567890
│   └── Reply to Reply 1        → conversation_id: 1234567890
└── Reply 2 (ID: 1234567892)    → conversation_id: 1234567890
    └── Reply to Reply 2        → conversation_id: 1234567890

No matter how deep the thread goes, all posts share the same conversation_id.

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Requesting conversation_id

Add conversation_id to your tweet.fields:

curl "https://api.x.com/2/tweets/1234567891?tweet.fields=conversation_id,in_reply_to_user_id,referenced_tweets" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

Response:

{
  "data": {
    "id": "1234567891",
    "text": "@user Great point!",
    "conversation_id": "1234567890",
    "in_reply_to_user_id": "2244994945",
    "referenced_tweets": [{
      "type": "replied_to",
      "id": "1234567890"
    }]
  }
}

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Getting a full conversation

Use conversation_id as a search operator to retrieve all posts in a thread:

curl "https://api.x.com/2/tweets/search/recent?\
query=conversation_id:1234567890&\
tweet.fields=author_id,created_at,in_reply_to_user_id&\
expansions=author_id" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

This returns all replies to the original post, sorted reverse-chronologically.

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Use cases

Thread reconstruction

Build the full conversation tree:

import requests

conversation_id = "1234567890"
url = f"https://api.x.com/2/tweets/search/recent"
params = {
    "query": f"conversation_id:{conversation_id}",
    "tweet.fields": "author_id,in_reply_to_user_id,referenced_tweets,created_at",
    "max_results": 100
}

response = requests.get(url, headers=headers, params=params)
replies = response.json()["data"]

# Sort by created_at to get chronological order
replies.sort(key=lambda x: x["created_at"])

Conversation monitoring

Stream replies to specific conversations in real-time:

# Add a filtered stream rule for a conversation
curl -X POST "https://api.x.com/2/tweets/search/stream/rules" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN" \
  -d '{"add": [{"value": "conversation_id:1234567890"}]}'

Conversation analytics

Count replies in a conversation:

curl "https://api.x.com/2/tweets/counts/recent?\
query=conversation_id:1234567890" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $TOKEN"

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Related fields

Field	Description
conversation_id	ID of the original post that started the thread
in_reply_to_user_id	User ID of the post being replied to
referenced_tweets	Array with type: "replied_to" and the parent post ID

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Example: Full thread retrieval

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": "1234567893",
      "text": "@user2 @user1 I agree with you both!",
      "conversation_id": "1234567890",
      "author_id": "3333333333",
      "created_at": "2024-01-15T12:05:00.000Z",
      "in_reply_to_user_id": "2222222222",
      "referenced_tweets": [{"type": "replied_to", "id": "1234567892"}]
    },
    {
      "id": "1234567892",
      "text": "@user1 That's interesting!",
      "conversation_id": "1234567890",
      "author_id": "2222222222",
      "created_at": "2024-01-15T12:03:00.000Z",
      "in_reply_to_user_id": "1111111111",
      "referenced_tweets": [{"type": "replied_to", "id": "1234567890"}]
    },
    {
      "id": "1234567891",
      "text": "@user1 Great point!",
      "conversation_id": "1234567890",
      "author_id": "4444444444",
      "created_at": "2024-01-15T12:02:00.000Z",
      "in_reply_to_user_id": "1111111111",
      "referenced_tweets": [{"type": "replied_to", "id": "1234567890"}]
    }
  ],
  "meta": {
    "result_count": 3
  }
}

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Notes

• The original post’s conversation_id equals its own id
• conversation_id is available on all v2 endpoints that return posts
• Use with filtered stream to monitor conversations in real-time
• Combine with pagination for large threads

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Next steps

Search posts

Search by conversation_id.

Filtered stream

Monitor conversations in real-time.