Talking about Twitter bots always requires a point. As when we talked about the limits of Twitter, where it was necessary to clarify from the outset that we were referring to the quantitative limitations imposed by the social network for the use of its services and functions, in this case it is essential to clarify that Twitter bots The ones we are talking about are not those used by Elon Musk to try to back out of the purchase of Twitter.
When talking about bots, in all cases, we are talking about more or less automated accounts, either to publish spam, spread false news, provide useful information or respond to specific user needs. The ones denounced by Musk are those dedicated to spam, disinformation and others, but the ones that interest us, for this article, are those that are useful (more or less, depending on the case), and that therefore we think are useful. they may interest you.
So, and assuming that at this point in the article the legal teams of the Twitter board and Elon Musk have already abandoned this reading, we can relax a bit and start talking about these very useful tools. Of course, before doing so, it is important to establish a difference between active and passive bots, that is, those that act in response to our actions, compared to those that do so autonomously. The latter usually publish information/content periodically or punctually in response to date and time, events, etc. The first, which are the ones that interest us now, will carry out their actions on demand .
Download videos from Twitter
This is, without a doubt, one of the functions most desired by many Twitter users , and it is that every day, real gems are published on this social network. From advertisements from decades ago to statements by current personalities, including funny montages, videos of animals, etc., rarely is the day that we don’t like some audiovisual. However, Twitter does not offer the possibility of downloading them directly from the social network, either in its web interface or with its apps. The good news is that there are a significant number of bots that help you do it. Here are some of them:
- Video Downloader Bot
- DownloadBot
- Video Downloader
In all cases, to use them, you just have to reply to the message that contains the video (they also work with animated GIFs) quoting the bot you want to use (you don’t need to write anything else). In this way, the bot will respond to your message with a tweet in which you will find a link from which you can download the video in question.
Screenshot of a tweet
It is true that operating systems have various tools for taking screenshots, but if what we want is to capture an image of a specific tweet, the easiest option is to use a bot that does it for us. In this case I have also chosen three bots, but with different functions .
- Pikaso – pikaso_me – The simplest of the three. You just have to post a reply to the tweet you want the screenshot of, with the text “pikaso_me screenshot this” (without the quotes) and, as a reply to your message, you will get the screenshot.
- Screenshot Bot – _screenshoter – Its operation is similar to Pikaso, but in this case the bot supports several options. Simply quoting it in a reply will get a normal screenshot, typing “_screenshoter dark” will capture it in dark mode, and typing “_screenshoter all” will give the bot a screenshot of the whole conversation.
- Screenshot Guru – ScreenshotGuru – I haven’t used it for a long time, because I don’t take screenshots, but at the time it has been my favorite option, for privacy. And it is that in this case, instead of a response to the tweet that we want to capture, what we will have to do is send a direct message to the bot, which will respond to us in the same way with the capture. In this way, “nobody” will know that you have made said capture.
Other cool features
Let’s see, next, other Twitter bots that are also very practical , and that you will surely end up using at some point, if you have not already done so.
- Remember MeBot – RememberMeBot – This bot is a gem, which explains not so much its almost half a million followers, but above all its constant presence in thread replies, interesting news messages, controversial content, etc. A project by the Argentine developer Francisco Induni, you can use this bot to remind you of a tweet when you tell it to (in a few hours, days, weeks, years… in short, whenever you want). Although its handling is quite simple, there are so many possibilities that, unlike the rest of the bots, in this case I recommend that you check its fixed tweet, where you can see them all.
- Thread Reader App – threadreaderapp – Twitter threads are very, very interesting, but sometimes, due to their length, the format of tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet after tweet… is not remotely the more appropriate. This bot makes it much easier, by creating a website where you can read all the messages in the thread in a much more natural and fluid way. To use it, all you have to do is quote the bot in a reply to any of the messages that make up the thread, include the word “unroll” in said reply, and in response the bot will send you a link to the thread’s website.
- Search This Image – SearchThisImage – Surely, on more than one occasion, you have seen a tweet that contained an image that you were familiar with, liked or that, for whatever reason, you wanted to know more about. To make it easy, quote this bot in a reply to the message containing the image, and you’ll get a reply with its origin, and another with similar images on Google.
