How Do You Download Your Tinder Data?

Tinder calls it the Download My Data tool. Go to Tinder's Manage My Account tool and log in, tap Download My Information, type the email address where you want the download link sent, and tap Submit. Tinder emails you a link within a few days.

1. Go to Tinder's Manage My Account tool.
2. Log in.
3. Tap Download My Information.
4. Enter the email address where you want the download link.
5. Tap Submit.

That is the whole request. Tinder prepares the file and sends the link to the address you gave it.

The link goes wherever you tell it to, so give it an inbox you check every day. An old address you set up years ago and never open is how a download link sits unread for a month.

Tinder also warns that emails about data requests can land in spam. When a few days have passed, look there as well as in your main inbox. The subject line to search for is Your Tinder privacy request.

The link saves a ZIP file. Once you extract it, you open a file called index.html, which shows your data as a page in your web browser. The folder may also hold a JSON copy of the same data, which is useful if you want to count things in a spreadsheet.

Most men who struggle on the apps guess at the reason. They blame the app, the women in their city, or plain bad luck. Very few have ever looked at their own record.

Your download is that record. Among other things, Tinder says it can include your swipe and match activity and your messaging activity. That is the raw material for an honest answer to one simple question: where do things stop working for you?

A record also ignores how the week felt. After a quiet weekend, a man can decide the whole app has turned against him. The file shows whether that weekend was typical or a one-off, which is a much better basis for changing anything.

a dating coach calls online dating a numbers game, but a very winnable one, as long as you work on the right numbers. He breaks results into a chain. First comes time on the app. Then the matches you get for that time, and how many of them are women you actually want. Then replies from those women, then phone numbers, then dates, then how the dates go.

Each link multiplies the next. His point is that most men are working hard on the wrong link. A man with plenty of matches who never gets a number does not need more matches. A man who gets numbers but no dates does not need cleverer openers.

The first question, he says, is which ratio is at fault. Your file is the quickest way to answer it with facts rather than a hunch.

Read the file with that chain in mind.

• Lots of swiping, few matches. The trouble starts before any conversation. That usually means your lead photo and the rest of your set, which are all she has to go on at that stage.
• Matches, but few replies to your first line. The trouble is your openers. A line she could have received from twenty other men gives her nothing to answer. A question about the dog in her third photo, or the mountain behind her in the first, gives her an easy reply.
• Good conversations that never reach a date. The trouble is timing. Most men wait too long to suggest a plan, and a chat that was lively on the second day is flat by the eighth. My fix is to get her number early, while she is still enjoying the exchange.

Change one thing at a time. My approach is to try one change, see whether the numbers move, and only then try the next. If you change your photos, your openers and your timing in the same week, you will never know which change did the work.

The tool works through your account, so request the file while you still have one. If you are thinking about deleting Tinder or taking a long break, download your data first. The request is only a few taps. You may find the fix is one link in the chain, not leaving the app altogether.

Log in to Tinder's Manage My Account tool, tap Download My Information, enter your email and tap Submit. The link arrives within a few days, so check spam too. Then use the file to find the one link in your results that is breaking, and fix that first.