# X Communities: the complete guide What X Communities are, how to find and join one, what Admins, Moderators and Members do, and how to export a Community's member list to CSV or Excel. Published: 2026-10-06 · Updated: 2026-10-14 · 13 min read Page: https://twitterviewer.app/blog/export-x-community-members X Communities are groups on X built around a shared topic, from astrophotography to open-source tooling, and they are one of the few places on the platform where a conversation has a defined audience and a set of people responsible for it. This guide explains what X Communities (still called Twitter Communities by many people) are, how to find and join them, how the three roles work, what a Community can and cannot do, and how to export a Community's member list to CSV or Excel when you need it outside of X. ## What are X Communities? An X Community is a named group with its own page, its own timeline and its own list of members. Instead of posting to all of your followers, a member posts into the Community, and the conversation stays attached to that topic. A Community has a name, a short description, a banner image, a creation date and a member count, all of which appear on its page. The idea is to give a topic a home that does not depend on one person's follower list. A photography Community can keep photographers talking about gear and locations even though none of them follow each other, and a newcomer can see at a glance what the group is for. Communities are different from a few things they get confused with: - **Lists** are a private or public way to group accounts so you can read their posts together. Nobody joins a list; the owner adds accounts to it. - **Hashtags** tag a post for anyone to find. They have no members, no moderation and no home page. - **Group chats** are private messages between a fixed set of people, not a topic timeline. If you only remember one thing: a Community is a topic with a roster, and the roster is what you may eventually want to export. ## How to find X Communities There are three practical ways to find one. 1. **Use the Communities page on X.** On the website, the Communities entry in the navigation opens a page with the Communities you have joined and suggestions based on your activity. The address is `x.com/i/communities`. 2. **Search for the topic.** Searching X for a subject often surfaces Communities alongside posts and people. A post that was sent into a Community also shows the Community it came from, and you can open its page from there. 3. **Follow a link.** Admins share the address of their Community in posts, newsletters and bios. A Community link looks like `x.com/i/communities/1234567890`, and the number at the end is its identifier. That identifier matters later. Every Community has a permanent numeric ID, and tools that work with Communities, including the [Communities Exporter](https://twitterviewer.app/x-communities-exporter), accept either the full link or just the number. > **Note: Where to check details** > X changes how Communities are discovered, joined and created from time to time. For the current options, open the Communities page on X itself rather than relying on a third-party guide, this one included. ## How to join an X Community Open the Community's page and use the join option you see there. Some Communities let you in straight away, and others ask you to request access so that a moderator can approve you first. What is on offer depends on how the Admin set the Community up, and X shows the right control on the page. A few habits help. Read the description and any pinned post before you post, because most Communities state what they are for. Start by replying in existing threads, since a first post that is promotional is the most common reason people are removed. And remember that your membership is visible, so join the Communities you are happy to be associated with. Leaving works the same way: open the Community and use the option to leave it. ## The three roles: Admin, Moderator and Member Every person in a Community has one of three roles. These are the same three roles you see in the exported file, so it is worth knowing what each one is for. | Role | What it is for | Typical activities | | --- | --- | --- | | Admin | The person responsible for the Community | Sets the Community up, decides who moderates, handles the most serious problems | | Moderator | Day-to-day caretakers | Review posts and members, keep conversations on topic, deal with reports | | Member | Everyone else | Read, post and reply inside the Community | The Admin is the person who runs the Community and has the final say on how the group is run. Moderators are appointed to share the work: in a large Community they keep the timeline readable by spotting off-topic posts, handling reports and welcoming new people. If you export a member list and want to know who actually keeps a Community running, the Moderator rows are where to look. Members are the audience and the contributors, and the member count on the Community page is the number you see in the exporter before you start a run. > **Tip: Exact permissions live on X** > What each role can do exactly, such as which tools a Moderator has, is decided by X and can change. The role names above are the three values that appear in the member list; for the powers attached to them, check the Community's own page on X. ## What X Communities can and cannot do Knowing the limits saves a lot of frustration, especially if you are thinking about running a Community or using one for research. ### What a Community gives you - **A focused timeline** for one topic, separate from your main feed. - **A defined group**, with Moderators and a member list instead of an open audience. - **A home that outlasts a thread**, where newcomers can read the description and catch up. ### What a Community does not give you - **A way to take the member list with you.** X shows the list on the Community page but offers no export button. If you want the roster in a spreadsheet, you need a separate step, which is what the next sections cover. - **A private space.** Anything posted there can be read by the group and screenshotted by any member. - **An email list.** The member list contains accounts on X, not email addresses or phone numbers. ### What this site can and cannot do TwitterViewer is an independent tool and is not affiliated with X Corp. For Communities it can do one thing well: read a Community's name, size and member list with your own connected X account and export the members. It cannot join a Community for you, post into one, read the posts of a Community that is not visible to your account, or open private Communities. Everything else on X stays on X. ## Why export a Community's member list? People export member lists for practical reasons. The common ones are below, and each of them needs the list as a file rather than a scrolling page. ### Moderators and Admins - **Spot your most active people.** With the list sorted by role and join order, you can see who to invite as a Moderator. - **Keep a dated backup.** A list saved today and another one in three months shows how the Community changed. - **Prepare to move or mirror the group.** If you want a second home on Discord, a Telegram group or a mailing list, the member list tells you who to invite through a public post. ### Researchers, managers and marketers - **Measure size and composition.** How many members are verified, how many accounts are new, what the follower spread looks like. - **Compare Communities.** Export two Communities on the same topic and compare their overlap by handle. - **Study growth.** Repeated exports at intervals give you a simple time series without any tooling. - **Understand an audience.** A member list is a list of people who chose to join a topic. Use it to learn who is in the room, not to spam it. Whatever the reason, keep it respectful. Contacting people who never agreed to be contacted is the quickest route to being blocked, reported and removed from the Community. ## What the exporter needs The [Communities Exporter](https://twitterviewer.app/x-communities-exporter) is part of Pro and runs with your own X account. Here is what you need before you start. - **A Community link or ID.** Either the full link, like `x.com/i/communities/1234567890`, or the number at the end. - **A Pro plan.** Community info and member export are among the four features that need your X account, and those are Pro-only. [Pricing](https://twitterviewer.app/pricing) shows the plan; the monthly price is $5, or $48 for a year. - **Your X account connected.** In Account, open the X account section and paste the `auth_token` and `ct0` cookies from your logged-in x.com session. The page checks them with X, stores them encrypted, uses them only for exports and searches that you start, and deletes them when you disconnect. - **A Community that is public.** Private Communities cannot be read by the exporter. If the page cannot find the Community, it says it does not exist or is not public. There is no developer key, no browser extension and nothing to install. ### Why your own account is needed X only serves Community member lists to signed-in users, so the exporter makes the request on your behalf with the account you connected. Because the cookie belongs to an X session, signing out of X in that browser ends it, and you simply reconnect next time. ## How to export members, step by step 1. Open the [Communities Exporter](https://twitterviewer.app/x-communities-exporter). 2. Paste the Community link or its numeric ID. 3. If your X account is not connected yet, connect it when the page asks. 4. Press **Export members**. The page reads the Community's name and size first. 5. Watch the preview table fill in as pages of members arrive. The counter shows how many members have been fetched out of the maximum. 6. When the run is finished, choose **Download CSV** or **Download Excel**. The preview is live. You do not have to wait for the whole run to see the first rows, and if you pasted the wrong Community you can stop and start again. ### How many members per run Each export holds up to **1,000 members**. If the Community has more, the page tells you it stopped at that number. The export always reflects the member list at the moment you run it, so a later run may include different people. ### Why it takes a little while Members arrive one page at a time, and the exporter waits **2 seconds** between pages so that it does not hammer X with requests from your account. A full 1,000-member run takes a while, but it is steady and much less likely to trigger rate limits. ## What is in the exported file The file contains one row per member, and the columns are the same for CSV and Excel. | Column | What it holds | | --- | --- | | `handle` | The account name without the @ | | `name` | The display name | | `role` | `admin`, `moderator` or `member` | | `followers`, `following`, `posts` | Public counts, when X includes them in the member list | | `verified` | Whether the account has a verification badge | | `location` | The location text from the profile, when present | | `bio` | The profile bio, when present | | `created_at` | The account creation date, when present | | `profile_url` | A direct link to the profile on x.com | The reliable fields are the ones that every member row carries: handle, name, role, verification and profile link. The count, bio, location and date columns are filled in when X includes them in the list it returns for that member, and they can be empty. That is a property of what X sends in the member list, not something added or removed on our side. The file never contains email addresses, phone numbers, private messages or any information about protected accounts beyond what X shows publicly on the member list. ### CSV or Excel? CSV opens everywhere and is the right choice for importing into other tools. It is saved with a UTF-8 marker, so names in Arabic, Japanese or Chinese display correctly when you double-click it in a spreadsheet. Excel is more convenient if you simply want to sort, filter and read the list. If a cell starts with `=`, `+`, `-` or `@`, the CSV adds a leading apostrophe so that a spreadsheet does not run it as a formula. ## What to do with the list Once you have a file, a few analyses need no code at all. - **Sort by role** to find Admins and Moderators, then by followers to see who has reach. - **Filter on `verified`** to see how many members have a badge. - **Group by `created_at` year** to see whether the Community is full of long-standing accounts or new ones. - **De-duplicate two exports** from different Communities to find shared members. If you want to move the conversation somewhere else, do it through a public post that members can choose to act on, not through unsolicited messages. To follow individual members afterwards, the [profile viewer](https://twitterviewer.app/twitter-profile-viewer) shows a public timeline without an account, and the [Watchlist](https://twitterviewer.app/i/watchlist), a Pro feature that holds 20 accounts, can email you about new posts from accounts you care about. ## Find a Community's discussions with search An export tells you who is in a Community. To find what has been said on a topic across X, [Advanced Search](https://twitterviewer.app/twitter-advanced-search) builds queries from accounts, dates, phrases and popularity, and the guide to [Twitter search operators](https://twitterviewer.app/blog/x-advanced-search-operators) lists the syntax if you prefer to type queries yourself. Search is also part of Pro and uses your own X account. ## Privacy and responsible use A member list is a list of real people. Use it for the purpose you have, such as moderating, researching or keeping a backup, and not for bulk unsolicited messages. Store the file where only you can open it, and delete it when you no longer need it. For what a viewer without an account can and cannot see in general, read [What a no-login viewer can see](https://twitterviewer.app/blog/what-a-no-login-viewer-can-see) and [Viewing X posts without an account](https://twitterviewer.app/blog/view-x-posts-without-login). > **Export your Community members** — [Open Communities Exporter](https://twitterviewer.app/x-communities-exporter) > Pro, up to 1,000 members per export, CSV or Excel, with your own X account. No extension. ## X Communities FAQs ### What are X Communities? X Communities are topic groups on X, each with its own page, timeline, rules and member list. Members post into the Community instead of to all of their followers, and a small team of Admin and Moderator accounts looks after the conversation. You can find them from the Communities page on X, from search, or from a link that someone shares. ### Is a Twitter Community the same as an X Community? Yes, Twitter Communities is the older name for X Communities. The platform was renamed from Twitter to X, and the feature kept the same purpose: groups centred on a topic with an Admin, Moderators and Members. Links still use the `x.com/i/communities/` format, and tools that accept a Community link or numeric ID work for both names. ### How do I join and leave an X Community? Open the Community's page and use the join control that X shows. Some Communities let you in straight away, others ask you to request access and wait for a moderator. To leave, open the Community and use the option to leave it. The exact options depend on how the Admin configured the Community. ### What is the difference between an Admin, a Moderator and a Member? An Admin is responsible for the Community, a Moderator helps keep it in order, and a Member takes part. Admins decide how the group is run and appoint Moderators, Moderators handle day-to-day review and reports, and Members read, post and reply. These three roles are the ones that appear in the exported file. ### Can I export the members of an X Community? Yes, with Pro and your own connected X account. X has no export button, so the [Communities Exporter](https://twitterviewer.app/x-communities-exporter) reads the member list page by page and saves it as CSV or Excel. Each run exports up to 1,000 members, and the file shows handle, name, role, verification and profile link for every member. ### Is exporting Community members free? No, the exporter is part of Pro. X only serves Community member lists to signed-in users, so the feature needs your own X account, and the four features that need a connected X account are Pro-only. Pro costs $5 a month or $48 a year, billed in crypto credits. See [Pricing](https://twitterviewer.app/pricing) for the details. ### Why does the exporter need my X account? X only shows Community member lists to signed-in users, so a request without a session returns nothing. When you connect your account, the site validates the session with X, stores it encrypted, uses it only for exports and searches you start, and deletes it when you disconnect. Signing out of X in that browser ends the session and you reconnect next time. ### Is there a limit on how many members I can export? Yes, up to 1,000 members per run. If the Community has more members, the page stops at that number and says so. The exporter waits 2 seconds between pages, so a full run takes a little time. ### Can I export a private Community? No, private Communities cannot be exported. The exporter reads Communities that are public. If the page says a Community is not found, check the link, and check that the Community is public and still exists. Protected accounts' content is also not available through the site. ### Will Community members know I exported the list? No, the site does not notify anyone. The exporter makes a signed-in request for the member list with your account, the same kind of request your account makes when you open the list on X. Be considerate with the data: do not use it to contact people who did not ask to be contacted.