【Ongoing Archives】

Donald Trump is Ongoing Archivesno stranger to Twitter.

The President-elect joined in March 2009 (according to his Twitter profile) and he, or whoever else controls his account, has sent more than 34,300 tweets over those almost eight years.

SEE ALSO: Will Melania Trump take over FLOTUS twitter? No one really knows.

But Friday he and his administration will be inheriting a lot more power within the network. No longer will President Barack Obama — the man who oversaw and pushed a rapid embrace of digital media — run the @POTUS account.

Beyond inheriting Air Force One, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and the codes for roughly 4,500 nuclear weapons, Trump and his administration Friday will be the proud new owners of the @POTUS Twitter account, which currently boasts 13 million followers.

The process is a bit complex in part because it's something that has never happened before, at least in the United States, so Mashableis here to walk you through what we know and what you need to know.

When does it happen?

Trump will be sworn in some time after 12 p.m. ET Friday. Obama and his administration will have access to the account during the morning hours.

Conveniently, you can watch all of this magic happen on Twitter. The platform will have a live video stream of the inauguration, plus accompanying coverage with PBS NewsHour.

You can expect Obama's team to send off one last tweet, and you can expect it'll be inspiring — not unlike what happened when Obama was elected and re-elected.

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It may be one of the most retweeted tweets of all time.

What happens to @POTUS?

At some point Friday, the engineers at Twitter will make magic happen. The tweets sent by the Obama administration and the followers the administration gained will transfer to a new handle: @POTUS44.

Additionally, Twitter users who followed @POTUS will automatically follow the @POTUS44 account Friday, which will serve as an archive of the old tweets. That account — and many others that are undergoing a similar transfer — are already up.

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The account is private and will become public Friday during the transition.

You also can already see what that looks like via other members of the Obama administration who have archived their accounts ahead of Inauguration Day.

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These accounts will be maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration.

The @POTUS account will no longer have tweets but will retain all the followers. Therefore, you will automatically be following an account run by the Trump administration. Turns out Twitter thought it was weird if they just booted people off from following the president's official account no matter who you voted for on Election Day.

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This duplication of followers may take a second. So brace yourself for people taking screenshots that imply Trump deleted Obama's Twitter followers.

That won't be true at first — but Trump could certainly decide do that on his own at some point.

What if I don't want to follow @POTUS under Trump?

Press the unfollow button Friday — or right now.

What if I want to keep following Obama's tweets?

The @POTUS44 account (what was once @POTUS) will just be an archive of tweets. So don't expect that to be updated.

Instead, you can find all your favorite dad joke tweets and golfing tweets and whatever else civilian Obama decides to tweet about at @BarackObama.

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Previously that account was managed by Organizing for Action, the nonprofit behind Obama's presidential campaign, and instead those personal tweets were signed by "-BO at @POTUS."

Michelle Obama can also be found on her account @MichelleObama — and @FLOTUS will be passed onto Melania Trump, though it's quite unclear if she'll use it?

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What about the other Twitter accounts?

The same process of moving over accounts and followers will happen for other accounts other than POTUS.

Here's a non-comprehensive list:

• President Obama: @POTUS44

• Vice President Biden: @VP44

• First Lady Michelle Obama: @FLOTUS44

• Dr. Jill Biden: @DrBiden44

• U.S. Drug Policy: @ONDCP44

• Office of Management and Budget: @OMBPress44

• Office of Science and Technology: @WHOSTP44

• Council on Environmental Quality: @WhiteHouseCEQ44

• OpenGov Foundation: @OpenGov44

• Chief Technology Officer: @USCTO44

• Council of Economic Advisors: @CEAChair44

• White House technology and design: @WHWeb44

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The tweets will be archived and followers will be maintained but the handles will gain a 44, again, reflecting Obama as the 44th President of the U.S.

Check out the full list of White House officials, whose accounts will be archived with a 44 and updated, on the Obama administration's blog post.

Will Trump even bother with @POTUS?

While the Trump administration will take control of the @POTUS account, Trump himself will keep tweeting from his personal account, transition sources told NBC Newsreporter Kelly O'Donnell earlier this week.

“I think, I’ll keep it."

"I think, I'll keep it," Trump said, referring to @POTUS, in an interview with German newspaper BILD.

It remains to be seen what he'll do with @POTUS and how the accounts will differ. Obama used @POTUS as a mix of personal and policy-related messages while @BarackObama was kept campaign.

Clearly, Trump enjoys the power of Twitter. "I thought I’d do less of it, but I’m covered so dishonestly by the press -- so dishonestly -- that I can put out Twitter," he told BILD. "I can go bing bing bing... and they put it on and as soon as I tweet it out."

Should Trump be allowed on Twitter?

Donald Trump’s tweets have arguably condoned violence, racismand sexism, which would most likely violate Twitter's community standards on abuse and hate speech.

But Trump has not been banned. Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey repeatedly spoke to that claim in March last year.

“Well, there's a counter of all the people who are correcting and critiquing and commenting on what he's saying, as well, so I think all of this is about balance. We have the world talking on this thing about the world. So we see every spectrum of idea and conversation,” Dorsey told Bloomberg.

Is there an Inauguration Day emoji?

Yes. Use #Inauguration or #inauguration on Twitter.

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What if I don't care about Twitter?

Impressed you made it this far.

The great digital transition of 2017 will happen on other platforms as well. Here, it's less about the person and instead more about official White House accounts. Similar to the Twitter transition, the posts on the accounts (all with the name WhiteHouse) will be removed from Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Medium, Tumblr and Flickr.

For Snapchat, also WhiteHouse, there's no need to press a delete button.

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Topics Social Media X/Twitter Donald Trump