Twitter Advanced Search — Complete Operators Reference + API Examples

TL;DR — the operator surface in 30 seconds

• The operators — author (from:, to:), dates (since:, until:), engagement (min_faves:, etc), filters (filter:verified, etc), geo (near:, within:), boolean (AND / OR / NOT). Same set across UI + APIs.
• The API — twitterapi.io's /twitter/tweet/advanced_search takes the full query string, returns JSON, paginates via cursor. $0.00015 per returned tweet per twitterapi.io/pricing.
• The cost ratio — same query via X official is $0.005 per post per docs.x.com/x-api/getting-started/pricing. That's ~33× per call; for a 500-result search, $0.075 vs $2.50.

What "Twitter advanced search" means in practice

The phrase "Twitter advanced search" covers three related things: (1) the form at twitter.com/search-advanced where you fill in fields and the UI builds the query for you, (2) the operator syntax that gets built (from:nasa lang:en min_faves:100 since:2024-01-01 and similar), and (3) the API endpoint that runs the same query programmatically.

For developers building monitoring tools, brand-mention dashboards, historical-archive products, or analytics applications, the form is too slow and the API is the real path. Same operator vocabulary; structured JSON output instead of an endless-scroll page.

This page is the operator reference + the API equivalent for every one. Use it as the cheat sheet next to your editor, or feed it to an LLM as context for a search-builder agent.

Operator reference — 30+ operators with API equivalent

Each row is one operator. The Example column is copy-paste-runnable in both the UI and the API. The API call column shows the equivalent in twitterapi.io's /twitter/tweet/advanced_search endpoint (the operator goes into the query parameter verbatim).

Source for the operator set: cross-checked against the X developer docs at docs.x.com/x-api/posts/search/integrate/build-a-query and igorbrigadir's reference cheat sheet on GitHub. Operator behavior is identical across the X search APIs and twitterapi.io.

Three runnable API examples

Set TWITTERAPI_IO_KEY in your env and copy any of these into a Python file. Each is copy-paste-runnable and returns structured JSON.

import os, requests

HEADERS = {"X-API-Key": os.environ["TWITTERAPI_IO_KEY"]}
BASE = "https://api.twitterapi.io"

def search(query, max_pages=10):
    tweets, cursor = [], None
    for _ in range(max_pages):
        params = {"query": query}
        if cursor: params["cursor"] = cursor
        r = requests.get(
            f"{BASE}/twitter/tweet/advanced_search",
            headers=HEADERS, params=params, timeout=15,
        )
        r.raise_for_status()
        resp = r.json()
        tweets.extend(resp.get("tweets", []))
        cursor = resp.get("next_cursor")
        if not cursor: break
    return tweets

results = search(
    'from:elonmusk (AI OR "machine learning") '
    'since:2024-01-01 until:2025-01-01 min_faves:10000'
)
print(f"found {len(results)} high-engagement AI posts")
for t in results[:5]:
    print(f"  {t['public_metrics']['like_count']:,} likes — {t['text'][:80]}")

import requests, os

HEADERS = {"X-API-Key": os.environ["TWITTERAPI_IO_KEY"]}

r = requests.get(
    "https://api.twitterapi.io/twitter/tweet/advanced_search",
    headers=HEADERS,
    params={
        "query": '"AI safety" filter:verified filter:replies '
                 'min_replies:100 lang:en'
    },
)
for t in r.json().get("tweets", [])[:10]:
    print(f"@{t['author']['userName']}: {t['text'][:100]}")
    print(f"  -> {t['public_metrics']['reply_count']} replies\n")

import requests, os

HEADERS = {"X-API-Key": os.environ["TWITTERAPI_IO_KEY"]}

r = requests.get(
    "https://api.twitterapi.io/twitter/tweet/advanced_search",
    headers=HEADERS,
    params={
        "query": '(restaurant OR food OR "best meal") '
                 'near:"New York" within:10mi lang:en min_faves:5'
    },
)
results = r.json().get("tweets", [])
print(f"found {len(results)} NYC food posts")
for t in results[:5]:
    print(f"  @{t['author']['userName']} ({t['public_metrics']['like_count']} likes): "
          f"{t['text'][:100]}")

Per-call cost from twitterapi.io/pricing: $0.00015 per returned tweet. A 500-result search costs $0.075; a 5,000-result archive pull costs $0.75. No monthly minimum, no Developer Console onboarding — just an API key.

How twitterapi.io compares to the other paths

Five real ways to run an advanced search query today, with the honest trade-offs each one carries.

Two honest observations from this matrix: (1) none of the SERP top results offers a developer API for the operator surface — the twitter.com UI and Bellingcat's guide both stop at "here's how to use the form"; (2) the cost ratio between twitterapi.io and X official (33×) is the deciding factor for any product that runs more than a few queries per day.

Who's actually using this endpoint

Among professional developers building on Twitter (X) API alternatives, advanced search is the de-facto top endpoint. Our own usage data shows over 3,000 paying customers monthly query the /twitter/tweet/advanced_search endpoint, with the endpoint processing over 40 million advanced search queries per month across that customer base — making it the single most-used endpoint on the twitterapi.io platform.

The customer mix skews toward research teams, journalism shops, brand-monitoring SaaS, academic groups, and analytics products — workloads where "I need the operator surface, programmatically, at sub-cent cost" is the unblocking constraint.

Source: twitterapi.io aggregated 30-day usage data. Specific counts banded per published methodology; comparable scale numbers updated quarterly.

Common search workloads — which operators fit

Related developer references