Talking about Twitter bots always requires a point. Just as when we talked about the limits of Twitter, where it was necessary to specify at the outset that we mean the quantitative restrictions that the social network imposes on the use of its services and functions, in this case it is necessary to specify that the robots we’re talking about aren’t the ones Elon Musk is using to try to retreat when shopping on Twitter.

When we talk about bots, in all cases we are talking about more or less automated accounts, whether for sending spam, spreading fake news, providing useful information or responding to specific user needs. The ones Musk condemns are the ones that engage in spam, misinformation and more, but the ones we’re interested in for this article are the ones that are useful (more or less, as the case may be), which is why we think you might be interested.

So, and assuming that at this point in the article, the legal teams of the Twitter board of directors and Elon Musk have already abandoned this reading, we can relax a little and start talking about these very useful tools. Before doing so, of course, it is important to establish the difference between active and passive robots, those that act in response to our actions, compared to those that do so autonomously. These usually publish information/content regularly or timely in response to date and time, events, etc. The first ones that interest us now will perform their actions on demand.

Download videos from Twitter

It undoubtedly is one of the most requested features by many Twitter usersand it so happens that real gems are posted on this social network day by day. From commercials from decades ago to statements made by today’s celebrities, scrolling through funny clips, animal videos, etc., rare is the day that we don’t give like into some audiovisual. However, Twitter does not offer the possibility of downloading them directly from the social network, neither in its web interface nor in its applications. The good news is that there are quite a few bots out there to help you with this. Here are some of them:

• Video downloader bot – @DownloaderBot
• DownloadBot – @DownloadBot
• video downloader – @DownloadVid

In all cases use them as just reply to the message that contains the video (they also work with animated GIFs) specifying the bot you want to use (no need to write anything else). This way, the bot will reply to your message with a tweet containing a link to download the video.

A screenshot of the tweet

It is true that operating systems have different tools to take screenshots, but if we want to capture an image of a specific tweet, the most convenient option is to use a bot that will do it for us. In this case I also selected three bots, but with different functions.

• Picasa – @pikaso_me – The easiest of the three. Just reply to the tweet you want a screenshot of with the text “@pikaso_me screenshot this” (without quotes) and you’ll receive a screenshot as a reply to your message.
• Screenshot of Bot – @_screenshoter – Its operation is similar to Picasso, but in this case the bot supports several options. If we simply quote it in the reply, we get a normal screenshot, if we write “@_screenshoter dark” the screenshot will be in dark mode, and if we use “@_screenshoter all” the bot will give us a screenshot of the entire conversation.
• Screenshots of Gurus – @ScreenshotGuru – I haven’t used it in a long time because I don’t take screenshots, but it was my favorite option for privacy at the time. And it is so that in this case, instead of replying to the tweet that we want to capture, we will have to send a direct message to the bot, which will respond to us in the same way as the capture. This way, “no one” will know that you have made such a capture.

Another great feature

So we’ll see other Twitter bots that are also very handyand which you will definitely use eventually if you haven’t already.

• remember me bot – @RemembermeBot – This bot is a gem, which explains not so much its almost half a million followers, but mainly its constant presence in thread replies, interesting news, controversial content, etc. A project of the Argentinian developer Francisco Induni, with this bot you can remember a tweet in the moment you enter it (in a few hours, days, weeks, years… in short, whenever you want). Although it is quite simple to handle, there are so many options that, unlike the rest of the bots, I recommend checking this one out your pinned tweetwhere you can see them all.
• Application for reading threads – @threadreaderapp – Twitter threads are very, very interesting, but sometimes the tweet-by-tweet-by-tweet-by-tweet-by-tweet-by-tweet format isn’t the best fit because of their length. This bot makes it much easier by creating a website where you can read all the messages in a thread much more naturally and smoothly. To use it, you’ll just need to quote the bot in a reply to any of the messages that make up the thread, include the word “unroll” in said reply, and the bot will send you a link to the thread’s website in the reply.
• Search this image – @SearchThisImage – You’ve surely seen a tweet on more than one occasion that featured an image that you knew, liked, or for whatever reason wanted to know more about. To make it easier, quote this bot in a reply to a message containing an image and you’ll receive a message with its origin and another with similar images on Google.