# How to write a Python Twitter Unfollow Script in 2022

Original: https://swyx.io/how-to-write-a-python-twitter-unfollow-script-in-2022
Published: 2022-08-21

> The Twitter API has changed (from v1 to v2), and Python has gone from 2 to 3, and Google is still serving up loads of outdated results.

The Twitter API has changed (from v1 to v2), and Python has gone from 2 to 3, and Google is still serving up loads of outdated results.

I had to clean up a Twitter account I recently took over so I had to look this up, and it was more annoying than strictly had to be. Here you go. (this is just a script dump meant for developers, do not blindly copy without understanding how to modify this code for your needs)

```python
import tweepy
import os
import pprint
from random import randint
from time import sleep


# make sure you create an app with read AND write permissions
# oauth 1.0 app worked for me
# https://stackoverflow.com/questions/8389796/why-this-error-read-only-application-cannot-post for more
SCREEN_NAME = os.environ['screen_name']
CONSUMER_KEY = os.environ['api_key']
CONSUMER_SECRET = os.environ['key_secret']
ACCESS_TOKEN = os.environ['access_token']
ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET = os.environ['token_secret']

auth = tweepy.OAuthHandler(CONSUMER_KEY, CONSUMER_SECRET)
auth.set_access_token(ACCESS_TOKEN, ACCESS_TOKEN_SECRET)
api = tweepy.API(auth)

followers = api.get_follower_ids(screen_name=SCREEN_NAME)
friends = api.get_friend_ids(screen_name=SCREEN_NAME)

## manually restricted range so that script doesn't go nuts
## using enumerate so as to track progress
count = 0
for idx, f in enumerate(friends[2000:3000]):
    if f not in followers:
      usr = api.get_user(user_id=f)
      if usr.followers_count < 100:  # arbitrary notability criteria
        print("Unfollowing https://twitter.com/{0} | name:{1} | followers {2} | description {3} , ".format(usr.screen_name,
          usr.name, 
          usr.followers_count,
        usr.description,
          ))
        # https://stackoverflow.com/a/7663441/1106414
        for attempt in range(3): #max retry 3 times
          try:
            api.destroy_friendship(user_id=f)
            count += 1
          except Exception as e:
            print('failed to try ' + e)
          else:
            break
        else:
          # we failed all the attempts
          print('all attempts of {0} failed!'.format(f))
        sleep(randint(1,10))
      print("processed index {0}".format(idx))
      
print("done! unfollowed {0}".format(count)) 
```

You can run this pretty easily on Replit: https://replit.com/@swyx/tweepy-python-scripting#main.py

![image](https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/6764957/185775655-22b5f13d-f207-4d5f-bf71-15bc40a00a0b.png)