Mastodon threads are built with the traditional method used on many other social networks.
Here’s how to do this manually in any app:
- Post the first part of your thread, and mention that it is the start of the thread
- Reply to the post with the second part of the thread
- Reply to this reply with the third part etc
- Just keep replying to your last previous reply to add the next part, and go through all your posts in order
- When you get to the final reply, mention that it’s the end of the thread
I can see a post shared from a thread, but how do I see the thread it comes from?
Just click on a post to view the thread it comes from. After you’ve clicked on the post, scroll up and down to see the rest of the thread.
Should I number the thread I’ve created?
It’s probably a good idea to number the posts in your threads, because people may see the individual posts shared out of context and not realise it is part of a bigger whole:
- Some people number threads by just putting a number at the bottom of each post in order (1 on first post, 2 on second etc).
- Some people take this further by indicating how many posts are in the thread in total (1/5 on first post, 2/5 on second etc). If you’re not sure how many parts a thread will have, you can just number them as 1/X, 2/X, 3/X and then END on the final post. As Mastodon has an edit function, you can also add the numbering to a thread afterwards too if you want.
- Some add a cotton reel emoji 🧵 next to a post’s numbering as a visual pun to indicate a thread.
Which visibility setting should I use for posts in my threads?
If you’re posting a normal-sized public thread, it’s considered polite to use the Public visibility setting for the first post of the thread and then the Unlisted visibility setting for the replies that make up the rest of the thread. This means that only the start of the thread shows up on live feeds and search results, and makes them easier to browse. However, if you find this difficult don’t worry about it.
If you’re posting a very long thread, please read the section below.
If I’m posting a very long thread, how do I stop all the posts overwhelming the Home timelines of my followers?
When you post a thread, all the posts in the thread show up in your followers’ Home timelines. If you regularly post very long threads, these massive numbers of posts can get very irritating and your followers may end up muting or unfollowing you.
Contrary to popular belief, the Unlisted visibility on Mastodon does not hide your thread replies from your followers. Your followers will see all the posts in your thread in their Home timeline no matter which visibility you use. There is an open issue on the Mastodon Github to fix this ⧉, if you are comfortable using Github you might want to give a thumbs up there.
If you want to regularly post extremely long threads, it might be better to post them on a Fediverse-compatible blogging platform such as Write Freely, Ghost or WordPress. People can follow Fediverse blogs from Mastodon etc, and your blog posts will appear in their Mastodon timelines as a single long post with a visible except. Your blog’s followers can click the excerpt open to see the full article if they want to read it.
Is there an easier way to create threads? Can I create them in advance in one go instead of manually bit-by-bit?
Yes, there’s a free open source tool called Splinter ⧉ which can automatically split your text and post it as a thread. Some apps and scheduled posting services may also include thread-creation systems. However, at a technical level all of these are just doing the above process of replies-to-replies so there’s no difference between these and a manually created thread.
If you’re on a computer, you can use a notepad application to type the whole thread in one go, then split it into bits by copying and pasting sections of your text over to Mastodon.
Should I create a thread by only replying to the original post instead of replying to my previous reply? I heard this displays threads better?
No, there is no point in doing this. Threads display best if you use the method at the beginning of the article where each part is a reply to the previous part.
It’s unclear where this “only reply to the original post” suggestion comes from, it doesn’t bring any advantages, only disadvantages. If you click on a post in an “only reply to original post” thread it hides all the other parts of the thread, which makes things very confusing.
Should I put hashtags in every post in the thread, or just the first post?
If the entire thread concerns the same topic, it’s probably best to put the tags on just the first post in the thread. Putting the same tags on every post in a thread means searches for those tags would bring up lots of posts from the same thread, and crowd out other people’s posts with that tag.
If the posts in the thread concern totally different topics, consider whether they might be better posted separately rather than in a thread. If a thread is most appropriate but the topics are very varied, then you might include hashtags in all the posts. You would need to make sure that posts with tags have their visibility set to Public for the hashtags to work.
Is this anything to do with Meta’s “Threads” platform?
No. Meta chose an annoyingly confusing generic name for their social media platform, and it has nothing to do with creating threads in general. The name “threads” for strings of posts started decades before Meta even existed.