Standard v1.1 timelines to Twitter API v2 timelines

If you have been working with the v1.1 timelines endpoints (statuses/user_timeline and statuses/mentions_timeline), the goal of this guide is to help you understand the similarities and differences between the standard and Twitter API v2 timelines endpoints so that you can migrate your current integration to the new version.

• Similarities:
  • Authentication:
    • OAuth 1.0a User Context (reverse chronological home timeline, user Tweet timeline and user mentions timeline)
    • OAuth 2.0 App-Only (user Tweet timeline)
  • Historical Access limit: User timeline (user Tweet timeline) provides access to most recent 3200 Tweets; mentions timeline (user mention timeline) provides access to most recent 800 mentions.
  • Support for Tweet edit history and metadata
  • Rate limits (user Tweet timeline)
  • Refresh polling: Ability to retrieve new results since the since_id
  • Traversing timelines by Tweet IDs
  • Results specifications:
    • Results order: Results returned in reverse chronological order
    • Ability to exclude replies (user Tweet timeline only)
    • Ability to exclude Retweets (user Tweet timeline only)
• Differences
  • New Authentication capability: 
    • OAuth 2.0 App-Only (user mention timeline)
    • OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code Flow with PKCE (reverse chronological home timeline, user Tweet timeline and user mentions timeline)
  • Access requirements: Twitter API v2 App and Project requirements
  • Rate limits (user mention timeline and reverse chronological home timeline)
  • Different Request limit & Volume limit
  • Additional pagination method
    • Different max_results (count) per response
  • Response data format
  • Request parameters
    
    • Customized data format based on request parameters, including v2 fields and expansions
    • Additional available data: metrics, Tweet annotations, polls

Similarities

Authentication 

The v1.1 statuses/user_timeline and the Twitter API v2 user Tweet timeline endpoint support both OAuth 1.0a User Context and OAuth 2.0 App-Only. Therefore, you can continue using the same authentication method and authorization tokens if you migrate to the Twitter API v2 version. 
 

Historical Access

The v1.1 statuses/user_timeline and the Twitter API v2 user Tweet timeline endpoint both will return the most recent 3200 Tweets, including Retweets

The v1.1 statuses/mentions_timeline and the Twitter API v2 user mention timeline endpoint can return the most recent 800 Tweets.
 

Support for Tweet edit history and metadata

Both versions provide metadata that describes any edit history. Check out the filtered stream API References and the Edit Tweets fundamentals page for more details. 

Rate Limits

Refresh polling using since_id

Both versions allow polling for recent results using the since_id.
 

Traversing timelines by Tweet IDs

Both endpoints have the capability to traverse through timelines using Tweet ID 'timestamps' based on the way Twitter IDs are constructed.  The functionality is generally  the same except for the following:

Response filtering parameters

Differences

Authentication

The v1.1 statuses/mentions_timeline endpoint only supports  OAuth 1.0a User Context.  The Twitter API v2 user mention timeline endpoint supports both OAuth 1.0a User Context, OAuth 2.0 App-Only, and OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code with PKCE 

If you would like to take advantage of the ability to access private or promoted metrics using the Twitter API v2 user Tweet timeline endpoint, you will need to use OAuth 1.0a User Context or OAuth 2.0 Authorization Code with PKCE, and pass the user access tokens related to the user who posted the Tweet for which you would like to access metrics.
 

Endpoint URLs

Note that the Twitter API v2 timelines endpoints require a path parameter of :id for the user ID.

• Standard v1.1 endpoints:
  • https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/home_timeline
  • https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/user_timeline
  • https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/mention_timeline
• Twitter API v2 endpoint:
  • https://api.twitter.com/2/users/:id/timelines/reverse_chronological
  • https://api.twitter.com/2/users/:id/tweets
  • https://api.twitter.com/2/users/:id/mentions

App and Project requirements

The Twitter API v2 endpoints require that you use credentials from a developer App that is associated to a Project when authenticating your requests. All Twitter API v1.1 endpoints can use credentials from standalone Apps or Apps associated with a project. 
 

Rate Limits

Request limits

Consumption volume limits

Request parameters

Response data format

  [
    {tweet object},
    {tweet object}
  ]

{
  "data": [{id,text},{id,text}],
  "meta": {
    "oldest_id": "1337085692623646724",
    "newest_id": "1334183616172019713",
    "previous_token": "77qpymm88g5h9vqkluldpw91lr0qzfz1sqydh841iz48k",
    "result_count": 10,
    "next_token": "7140dibdnow9c7btw3w29gqolns6a1ipl3kzeae41vsxk"
  }
}

Twitter API v2 JSON format

Twitter API v2 is introducing new JSON designs for the objects returned by the APIs, including Tweet and user objects. You can learn more about the Twitter API v2 format, how to use fields and expansions by visiting our guide, and by reading through our broader data dictionary

• At the JSON root level, the standard endpoints return Tweet objects in a statuses array, while Twitter API v2 returns a data array. 
• Instead of referring to Retweeted and Quoted "statuses", Twitter API v2 JSON refers to Retweeted and Quoted Tweets. Many legacy and deprecated fields, such as contributors and user.translator_type are being removed. 
• Instead of using both favorites (in Tweet object) and favorites (in user object), Twitter API v2 uses the term like. 
• Twitter is adopting the convention that JSON values with no value (for example, null) are not written to the payload. Tweet and user attributes are only included if they have a non-null value.
   

One of the biggest differences between standard v1.1 and Twitter API v2 endpoint versions is how you select which fields return in your payload. For the standard endpoints, there are several parameters that you could use to identify which fields or sets of fields would return in the payload, while the Twitter API v2 version simplifies these different parameters into fields and expansions. 

• fields: Twitter API v2 endpoints enable you to select which fields are provided in your payload. For example, Tweet, user, Media, Place, and Poll objects all have a list of fields that can be returned (or not). 
• expansions: Used to expand the complementary objects referenced in Tweet JSON payloads. For example, all Retweets and Replies reference other Tweets. By setting expansions=referenced_tweets.id, these other Tweet objects are expanded according to the tweet.fields setting.  Other objects such as users, polls, and media can be expanded. 

• conversation_id
• Two new annotations fields, including context and entities
• Several new metrics fields 
   

We have put together a data format migration guide which can help you map standard v1.1 fields to the newer v2 fields. This guide will also provide you the specific expansion and field parameter that you will need to pass with your v2 request to return specific fields.