Based on how often Twitter, oh sorry… I mean X, is changing these days, there’s a pretty good chance this blog will be obsolete by the time you read it but here goes anyway…
Have you recently found yourself trying to visit a Twitter profile (when not logged in), and while it may initially load on the page, instantly you’re met with an annoying pop up after being redirected to a login prompt? Without a sock puppet account (which is getting harder to create and hang onto), you’re unable to get beyond that unexpected barrier.
ANNOYING.
Annoying, but not impossible.
That is, if all we need to see is the top portion of the profile page where the bio, location, links and other useful information is stored. If that’s all you need from the target’s page, here are a couple of easy options for you…
1. View Google’s cached result
Simple but effective. Google is allowed to crawl and index the profile, without falling victim to the dreaded redirect to a login page. Take advantage of that in one of two ways…
Locate the profile via Google search and simply right click the 3 dot menu next to the result. If Google has a cached version, you’ll find the button for “Cached” as an option in the resulting pop up.
The result is displayed in a way that most users will recognize as different than how the platform is designed to look, but the important part is that the profile information you need is there. This won’t load any posts, replies, media, or likes, but it will get you a look at everything appearing above.
Secondarily, you can try using Google’s “cache:” operator to query your way directly to the cached version of the profile page by typing in the text as shown here, replacing this username with the one you’re searching for:
2. Enter the profile via an indexed post from Google results.
If Google has crawled and indexed content that includes a status written by your target profile, or perhaps a comment they were @ mentioned in by someone else, you can visit the link to that post directly from Google and no login wall will appear. In a second, I’ll show you how to get to a clear version of the profile from there. First, we need to find a post/status/reply with our user in it.
There are lots of ways you can ask Google to find you these kinds of posts from the platform that contain the linked profile name of your target, here is just one example:
twitter.com/fatusfee inurl:statusSimply click one of the results and head right on into the platform.
Now we’re in, we just need to click on the target’s name here in order to be directed to their profile page.
NOTE: Do not right click and open the profile in a new tab! This will trigger the redirect to a login page. Simply click right on their profile name and load in the same window you’re in.
GRIFFIN YOU LIED TO ME! THERE’S A DAMN LOGIN BOX ON THE SCREEN!
Deep breath.
Unfortunately, you can’t just “X” out of the box and view the page (see what I did there?). So if you are one of those overachievers who tried to run on ahead, welcome back.
While on the page like the one above, open your browser’s developer tools. It’s easiest just to right click on that login pop up box and choose “Inspect” from the options.
This will open the dev tools, and you can (while in the Elements tab), hover over the various lines and see the corresponding elements on the screen being highlighted. Just go up a handful of lines from where you are until your hovering is causing the entire pop up box to be highlighted, like you see here:
Right click and choose “Delete Element”. Poof!
Now you can close the developer tools and freely view the page, though as before, this will not include the profile’s posts, replies media or likes. You’re simply viewing the profile details, photo, banner and other user-supplied information.
Bonus tip… If you’re a bit of a perfectionist, like I am, and you hate that the opaque overlay is still over top of the entire the web page making the screen appear a bit greyed out, well you can delete that element as well. It’ll be the line just above where we previously deleted the box. Delete that and you’ll be viewing a beautifully clear page like the one below.
If you get a little too deletion happy and accidentally delete something important, never fear! Just reload the page and start again until you get it right.