OldTwitter for Safari

A Safari Web Extension that restores the classic 2015/2018 Twitter UI on twitter.com and x.com. This is a Safari port of the OldTwitter Chrome extension by dimdenGD.

What It Does

OldTwitter is not a CSS skin — it completely replaces Twitter's React frontend with a pre-built classic layout:

• Blocks Twitter's JavaScript from loading entirely
• Strips Content-Security-Policy headers so the extension can inject its own UI
• Injects pre-built HTML/CSS/JS layouts for each page (home, profile, search, notifications, etc.)
• Calls Twitter's own internal APIs using your existing login session
• Restores the old UI: chronological timeline, classic tweet cards, old-style notifications, DMs, and more

All features from the original Chrome extension are preserved: themes, font options, custom CSS, tweet filtering, muting, translation, media viewer, and more.

Requirements

• macOS 13 (Ventura) or later
• Safari 16.4 or later
• Xcode 14 or later (to build)

Installation

1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/aikios/oldtwitter-safari.git
cd oldtwitter-safari

2. Open in Xcode

open OldTwitterSafari.xcodeproj

3. Build and run

Select the OldTwitterSafari scheme and press Run (⌘R). This builds the host app and the extension together.

4. Enable the extension in Safari

1. Open Safari → Settings → Extensions
2. Enable Old Twitter Layout
3. Click Always Allow on twitter.com and Always Allow on x.com when prompted
4. Navigate to twitter.com or x.com

Note: The first time you load Twitter after enabling the extension, you may need to log in again. Your credentials are not stored by the extension — it uses your browser's existing Twitter session.

Signing

If you're building for personal use, set the team to your personal Apple ID in Signing & Capabilities. No paid developer account is required to run on your own Mac.

How It Works

The extension runs in three stages on every Twitter page load:

1. blockBeforeInject.js — injected at document_start, attaches a MutationObserver that sets all incoming <script> tags to type="javascript/blocked", preventing Twitter's React app from mounting.

2. ruleset.json — declarativeNetRequest rules strip Content-Security-Policy and X-Frame-Options headers, block Twitter's service worker, and fix CORS headers for media.

3. injection.js — detects the current page URL, fetches the corresponding pre-built layout from layouts/[page]/, replaces document.documentElement.innerHTML with the layout HTML, then injects the layout's scripts and styles. The layout scripts call Twitter's own REST/GraphQL APIs via apis.js to load your actual timeline, notifications, etc.

Project Structure

OldTwitterSafariExtension/Resources/
├── manifest.json               # Safari MV3 manifest
├── scripts/
│   ├── blockBeforeInject.js    # Blocks Twitter's React at document_start
│   ├── injection.js            # Routes pages and injects layouts
│   ├── apis.js                 # Twitter REST + GraphQL API wrappers
│   ├── helpers.js              # Shared utilities
│   ├── tweetConstructor.js     # Builds tweet DOM elements
│   ├── tweetviewer.js          # Modal tweet detail view
│   ├── background.js           # Service worker
│   └── ...
├── layouts/
│   ├── home/                   # Timeline
│   ├── tweet/                  # Individual tweet + replies
│   ├── profile/                # User profiles
│   ├── notifications/          # Notifications + mentions
│   ├── search/                 # Search results
│   ├── bookmarks/
│   ├── lists/
│   └── ...                     # Each layout has index.html + style.css + script.js
├── images/                     # Icons and assets
├── fonts/                      # Custom icon font (JustBird, rosetta)
├── libraries/                  # Third-party libs (twemoji, viewer.js, etc.)
└── ruleset.json                # declarativeNetRequest rules

Credits

All core extension code is by dimdenGD. This repo contains only the Safari packaging, Xcode project, and Safari-specific compatibility patches.

Safari-specific changes made in this port:

• Xcode project and Swift host app wrapper
• browser.runtime.getURL instead of chrome.runtime.getURL throughout
• Favicon delivered as embedded data: URL (Safari ignores safari-web-extension:// URLs as favicons)
• history.replaceState trigger for Safari to re-evaluate favicon after DOM replacement
• CSS URL rewriting (chrome-extension:// → safari-web-extension://) for font assets
• Translate button shown inline on timeline (not just tweet detail page)

License

See the original project for license information.