If a post is boosted by a lot of people, you may see it repeatedly in your timeline. This can be annoying if you’re tired of seeing it.
There is already a feature in Mastodon to prevent this happening, called Group Boosts, and it is on by default, you don’t need to do anything to switch it on. Unfortunately, it is hardcoded to allow boosts to repeat after 40 other posts have been in your timeline. This limit worked okay in the early days of the Fediverse when things were quieter, but nowadays with millions of people online you are a lot more likely to see repeated boosts.
This 40 posts limit cannot currently be adjusted by users or admins, but hopefully the developers could allow this to happen. If you are comfortable using github, you can vote for this limit to be adjustable by giving a thumbs up to the first post in this thread ⧉.
Is there any kind of workaround that I could use in the meantime?
There’s nothing that directly adjusts the 40 post number, which is why so many people have voted for it to become adjustable. However, if there’s a post you really want to stop seeing, you might want to try using filters to hide an over-boosted post.
What if I see one particular account boosting too many different boosts?
All links on Mastodon count as 23 characters towards your post’s character limit, no matter how long they really are. Because of this, there is no need to use link shortener services on Mastodon.
Mastodon does this because it’s much better for privacy that links remain in their original form, as link shortener services tend to track the people that click on them. It also means the links will continue to work in the future and aren’t dependent on the existence of the link shortener service.
But I want to track people who click on my links!
You can use link shorteners to track people, but you probably shouldn’t. Also, some people may wonder why you are using link shorteners when all links count for 23 characters anyway.
Why is it 23 characters?
Apparently Twitter’s original built-in link shortener used 23 characters. So when Mastodon removed the need for shorteners, they emphasised this by only counting 23 characters for all links.
Click the poll icon, this usually looks like a bar chart 📊 (on some apps there may be no poll icon visible, but you can click the attachment icon and then select poll as an attachment)
Write your question in the main part of the post
Add up to four responses, and describe each option (you can use emoji too). Some servers running customised code may allow more than four responses.
Set the duration, between 5 mins and 7 days
Click Publish to post the poll!
Allowing multiple responses on polls
You can optionally allow people to chose more than one response in polls. The exact way you activate this option depends on which version of Mastodon your server is running or which app you’re using.
Create the poll via the web interface as described above, but don’t post it yet
On most server websites click on a circle next to one of the options, the circles will all change into rounded squares, and the poll will now allow multiple responses. Alternatively, some websites might have an option that says “Style: Pick One”, click this and choose “multiple choice” if you want to allow multiple responses. Third party apps will have various different ways of allowing multiple responses.
If you want to go back to single response on most websites, click on a square to change it back to circles before you post.
The “Style” option is due to replace the circle/square thing in the next version of Mastodon, but the next version hasn’t been officially released yet. Some servers are running the next version early while it is still in its testing phase, and that’s why they already have the “Style” option instead of the circles and squares.
⚠️ Warning about editing polls
You can edit polls the same way you edit posts, just go to ⋯ on the post and select Edit. However, when you edit the poll’s options or change its response type, it will automatically reset the poll’s results back to zero without any warning! (Editing the main text above the poll doesn’t reset it though.)
This behaviour is presumably to prevent abuse of the poll system, but the lack of warning can really catch people out (it certainly caught me out! 😅 ). For those comfortable using Github, there’s an open issue about this here ⧉.
I can’t find the poll button on my app!
Some third party apps have the poll button hidden away under the attachment button. Click attach, and then instead of choosing an image or video or audio file, choose a poll.
Some people have more than four options on their polls! How is this possible?
Mastodon is just one kind of server on the wider Fediverse. This means that many of the accounts you see on your timeline are on servers that have tweaked their Mastodon software to allow additional featured (such as more poll options), or are on totally different kinds of server altogether. You can escape the limits of standard Mastodon servers by moving to a different kind of Fediverse server.
You can follow someone on Mastodon by clicking on the Follow button on their profile page. You can go to someone’s profile page by clicking on their name.
You can unfollow them by clicking the same button again. The button may have a different label after you’ve followed them (Unfollow, Following etc), but it will be in the same place on the screen.
I know someone has an account on Mastodon etc and I’ve tried searching for their account, but it doesn’t show up in the search results. How do I follow them?
If you’re trying to get someone’s profile page to appear and nothing else works, you can use their account address to make their profile appear. Copy and paste their account address into the search box, and this will force your server to show you their profile page.
If you don’t know their account address but you have some other means to communicate with them, try asking them directly. They can find their account address on their profile page, it’s just below their display name. There’s more info on the account addresses page.
Is there a limit on how many accounts I can follow on Mastodon?
Yes and no.
If you have fewer than 7500 followers, you can only follow up to 7500 accounts.
If you have more than 7500 followers, you can follow accounts equal to that amount. For example, if you had 10,000 followers you could follow 10,000 accounts.
This should delete the post straight away on your own server. Most other servers where the post is visible will delete it too, though in some cases there may be a delay in the deletion happening (as the other server may have a queue of tasks to work through).
In a small number of cases a deletion may not happen on the other server, for example if the other server is not working properly. If you’re concerned about how widely a post may be seen, you can restrict its visibility when you post it.
If you’re correcting a mistake in the post, it’s probably better to edit it. Deletions are generally just if you want to remove a post forever.
Editing means the post stays at the same link as before, and if your post was shared by other people it will still be visible in their feeds. It also means all the replies to the post will remain intact and visible below the post.
If you delete a post, any links to the post will break and all the shares of that post will disappear. All replies to the deleted post will be orphaned and very difficult to find.
What does “Delete and re-draft” mean?
There are actually two delete options on Mastodon, Delete or Delete and re-draft. The first just deletes the message, but the second deletes the message and sends a copy of it to the post writing box so you can make changes and repost it.
Delete & re-draft is the easiest way to change the visibility of a post, as this cannot be done through editing.
Delete & re-draft is very useful if you accidentally include sensitive information within an otherwise okay post. Editing will not hide this information totally, because all previous versions of an edited post are visible by clicking the Edited link below the post. (This audit trail of previous versions is a deliberate safety feature to prevent “bait & switch” abuse of editing.)
Bear in mind that both delete options delete the post, and any shares will be lost, links will break and replies will be orphaned. If you just want to make changes to the content, editing is usually a much better option.
Are there any reasons to delete and re-post the same content?
There are niche cases where deletion and reposting can be useful. For example, if the replies thread below a post has gone totally off the rails and you want to “reset” the discussion, deleting and reposting it lets you start from scratch.
On Mastodon, there’s a feature that automatically suggests accounts to follow when people first join a server, and when they click on the For You or People tab in Explore or Search. These suggestions are based on how many people on that server follow the account and boost its posts, and server admins can optionally add suggestions manually too.
What if I don’t want my account suggested to others?
You can set whether your account is suggested to others or not.
Click on Profile (or ☰ and Profile if you’re on the mobile website)
Click on the Privacy & Reach tab at the top
Go to the box marked Feature profile and posts in discovery algorithms, and UN-tick the box if you do NOT want to be suggested.
Wait a minute… “Feature profile and posts in discovery algorithms”? I thought Mastodon didn’t use algorithms?
The name in this section is a bit misleading. These are not the kind of complex, hidden, dubiously motivated algorithms that cause problems on Facebook, Twitter etc. The “algorithm” in this case is a simple open source mathematical formula that looks at which accounts are most followed and most boosted.
Technically even the simplest mathematical process is an algorithm, but in this case it might as well just say “Most followed & most boosted accounts”.
The “For You” tab… is it using my personal data to generate suggestions?
No, it doesn’t use personal data. The For You tab gives the same suggestions to everyone on your server, but it hides accounts you are already following which is why it says “For You”. The tab has been renamed “People” on upcoming versions of Mastodon to make this clearer.
On Mastodon, you can set your timeline to automatically hide or block posts featuring certain words, phrases, hashtags or emoji. You can choose to block them completely, or hide them behind a warning that you can open manually.
This isn’t just about offensive posts, it can be filtering for any reason at all. Some people use filters to hide Wordle posts for example. Your filters are private, and they will apply in the apps as well as on the website. No one will know you have filtered their posts.
Go to ⚙️ Preferences > Filters (On the mobile website click ⚙️ and then ☰ and then Filters, on the desktop website click ⚙️ Preferences and then the Filters link on the left side of the Preferences page)
Click the Add new filter button
Choose the settings you want (see the rest of this guide below for more details on what all the options mean)
Click Save new filter
Does the filter’s title need to match the words in the filter?
No. The title can be anything you want that makes it memorable, it doesn’t have to match the actual filtered words.
Can I filter for words, phrases or emoji? Are they case sensitive?
Yes, you can put one word, one emoji, or a phrase, or some mixture of these, into the filter. The contents of the filter is not case sensitive.
Which parts of posts does the filter look at?
The filter will look for its keywords in entire posts, including the actual content, hashtags, account addresses, alt text descriptions or web addresses mentioned in posts.
Does the filter work retrospectively?
Yes. Filters work retrospectively, so posts made before the filter was created will also be filtered.
Can I add more words, phrases or emoji to the same filter?
Yes. You can add more words and phrases to the same filter by clicking the + Add keyword link at the bottom of the page. The filter will be triggered if any of the words or phrases are present.
Do I need to include # if I want to filter posts with a particular hashtag?
No. You don’t need to include # on filtered hashtags, you just need to include the actual word or phrase. Posts with such hashtags will automatically be blocked if the tags contain a filter’s keyword(s).
How do I set a filter to be temporary?
You can make filters temporary by setting the Expire after section. By default this is set to “never” which means the filter is permanent, but if you set a value it will stop filtering after it reaches its time limit.
How do I apply the filter to just specific parts of Mastodon?
The Filter contexts section lets you apply the filter to specific parts of Mastodon. If you want it applied everywhere, tick all the boxes.
What does the “whole word” option mean?
If you have the Whole word option ticked, it means the filter only applies to posts containing exactly that word. (If you have this active, plurals or variations of a word will NOT activate the filter, because they are not exactly the same as the word.)
If you UN-tick the Whole word option, the filter will also apply to posts that have that word within other words (such as plurals), or if a word has other letters or numbers next to it without spaces.
How do I edit or delete my existing filters?
You can edit or delete filters at any time by going back to the Filters section in ⚙️ Preferences.
How do I filter posts that contain a particular link?
Add a filter for part of the text in the link (such as the link’s domain name), then make sure you have UN-ticked the box marked Whole word, then save the filter. This will filter anything that contains that text including links.
How do I block Wordle posts that don’t contain the word “wordle”?
Wordle posts sometimes are just blocks of coloured squares without the actual word “Wordle”. You can block these by creating a filter for one of these coloured squares, for example either 🟩 or 🟨. Make sure you have UN-ticked the Whole word option.
(If you’re wondering what Wordle is, it’s a very popular word guessing game. The squares indicate how close the person came to guessing that day’s word.)
Content Warnings (CWs) are an optional Fediverse feature which hides the content of a post behind a warning message. The post can be revealed by clicking on the warning. Only the person who writes the post can add a CW to it.
What are CWs for?
Content warnings hide any kind of content where the person reading may not want to read it right that minute, but they may want to read later. It could be something serious like upsetting news, or less serious like film spoilers. There’s also a very strong Fediverse tradition that those who are able to should use CWs when talking about emotive topics such as politics or religion. It is also often used for potentially “not safe for work” content such as gore or nudity.
How do I add a CW to my post?
Start writing a new post or edit an existing post
Click on the button at the bottom of the message writing window labelled “CW” or “Warning” or ⚠️ or other similar icons
Write a brief warning giving people a clear idea of what to expect within the post itself, without them having to actually open it
Publish the post
What if I want to open lots of CWs at once?
On Mastodon, if you are using the website or the web app you can make all the CWs in a thread open or close at once by clicking the 👁️ eye icon in the top right corner of a thread. (Note that the eye icon on the official mobile app does something different, it just opens one post at a time.)
I don’t care about warnings, how do I make all posts be visible for me automatically?
If you don’t want to ever see any CWs at all, you can make Mastodon open all CW posts by default:
Log in through the website or the web app
Click ⚙️ Preferences
Scroll down the page and tick the box marked Always expand posts marked with content warnings
Click the Save changes button
Is it compulsory to use CWs?
It depends.
Some servers have specific rules about when to use CWs, while others ask you to use your initiative.
When exactly should I use CWs? What if I see someone not using CWs when they should be?
CWs are an accessibility feature for many people, as they allow those who have traumas triggered by certain topics to read potentially triggering posts when they are mentally prepared to do so. It’s important to emphasise the point that for many people CWs are not about avoiding topics, it’s exactly the opposite: CWs make triggering posts accessible to people who would otherwise have to avoid them, in the same way that text descriptions make images accessible to blind people. They can widen your post’s audience.
Having said that, it is a bad idea to call people out for not using CWs! Some people will have legitimate reasons for not using CWs, for example someone who is currently going through a serious personal trauma, or perhaps is being persecuted or under threat of violence. It is not appropriate to demand CWs from someone who is going through something really horrific in their real world life. They may have much bigger things to worry about than social media, and we should help them deal with these bigger things however we can.
Even if someone should be using CWs, having public arguments about rules is not necessarily the best way to get someone to obey them, especially if they’re new to the Fediverse.
If there’s a post you think should be CWed and there’s no obvious reason why it isn’t, check the rules on your server and then ask your server admin for advice on what to do. They set the rules, and they are ultimately the ones that decide what is allowed on there.
In short, CWs are a balancing act, and require a lot of social skill (that’s why this section is so long!). The existence of CWs brings the Fediverse a tiny bit closer to the complexities of everyday life in the real world, where reading the room is essential to getting on with people. No one is going to get this right all the time, but simply being aware of CWs as an option and using them when you feel appropriate and able will make the Fediverse a much more accessible and pleasant place to be.
If you use a public visibility setting on a post, the post will be visible to everyone, even people who aren’t Fediverse members. This means the post may be indexed by search engines, but there is something you can do to stop it.
Also, by default Mastodon profiles can be indexed by search engines as they are public too.
How to prevent a post being visible to search engines
The surest and safest way to prevent a post ending up on a search engine’s index is to use a non-public visibility setting. Followers-only and Mentions-only settings cannot be seen by search engines, so they cannot be indexed by them.
How to ask search engines not to index your profile
Mastodon has an option to request that search engines don’t index your profile page:
Click on your profile image to go to your profile page
Click on Edit Profile
Click on the Privacy & Reach tab at the top of the page
Scroll down to the box marked “Include profile page in search engines”, and UN-tick this box
Click the Save changes button at the bottom of the screen
However, bear in mind it’s up to a search engine to decide if it wants to honour this request. Some search engines may decide to ignore your request. For that reason, it’s best not to put sensitive information on your profile.
What does the other option “Include public posts in search results” do?
There is another option in the settings just above the one about profiles. However, despite the similar wording this other option is nothing to do with search engines. If you tick the box marked “Include public posts in search results”, it will allow your public posts to appear in search results within Mastodon rather than external search engines. See the guide to full text search for more info on this.
Scroll down to the option marked Show follows and followers on profile, and UN-tick it
Click the Save changes button
You will still be able to see your follows and follower lists when you look at your profile while logged in, but other people will not be able to see them.
What if I change my mind?
If you change your mind and want to show your lists to others, repeat the process above but tick the box instead of un-ticking it.
Will this stop people seeing me on other people’s follow/follower lists?
No, it will just stop people browsing your profile’s follow and follower lists. You may still show up on the follow/follower lists of other profiles.
On Mastodon, you can use a follow request system to restrict who can follow you. When it’s switched on, no one can follow you unless you manually approve their request. This can be used to screen who follows you.
Click on your profile image to go to your profile page
Click on Edit profile
Click on the Privacy and reach tab
UN-tick the box marked Automatically accept new followers
Click the Save changes button at the bottom of the page
After you’ve done this, a padlock icon 🔒 will appear next to your username on your profile. Anyone who clicks follow will send a follow request that you have to approve before the follow is activated.
If you change your mind about using follow requests, do the same thing again but tick the box instead of unticking it.
How do I approve or reject follow requests?
Follow requests will appear in your notifications and (on some interfaces) in a special section for follow requests. Click the ✔️ tick icon to approve a request, or the ❌ cross icon to reject it.
Don’t reject followers just because they don’t have a picture
Don’t screen followers out just because they have blank profile pictures. Many blind users don’t use profile pictures, but they will have text in their profile. The best way to screen potential followers is to read what they have written about themselves and what they have posted.
It is totally fine to block or mute people on Mastodon and the Fediverse. It is not considered rude or unusual to do so. Use it as freely as you want!
There are lots of reasons why someone might block or mute an account, it’s not necessarily any kind of judgement against that account.
To block or mute someone on Mastodon:
Either click ⋯ on one of their posts, or go to their profile and click the ⋯ or︙ button at the top
Select Mute or Block depending on what you want
If you change your mind, do the same thing again but select Unmute or Unblock
Here’s what these options mean:
Mutes are the softest option. When you mute someone you will no longer see their posts and you won’t see posts that mention them. You can also optionally set a timer so that the mute expires after a certain period, and there’s also an option for muting or not muting notifications from them. People who are muted will not know they are muted, and they will still be able to follow you, see your posts and interact. From the muted person’s point of view, everything will seem normal.
Blocks are the harder option. When you block someone, it does everything a mute does but also prevents them following you and hides your posts from them while they are logged in.
What about the “Block Domain” option? What does that do?
It mutes all accounts from that person’s server, but does not block them (yes, the name is very misleading!). Please see the blocking and muting servers guide for more details.
How do I keep track of who I’ve muted and blocked?
Select Muted Users, Blocked Users or Blocked Domains
If you want to remove a mute or block, click the icon next to a name on the list
How do I do a temporary mute?
To have a temporary mute on Mastodon, log in through your server’s website or web app and it will offer you the option of setting a duration when you’re confirming the mute. Set the duration to however long you want the mute to last.
How do I mute just someone’s boosts?
On Mastodon, if you follow someone and you want to see their posts but not their boosts, you can hide just their boosts without blocking or muting them. This doesn’t affect their normal posts, and they have no way of knowing you’re doing it.
What happens to DMs sent by someone I’ve muted or blocked?
If you mute or block someone, you won’t see any DMs from them by default. However if you decide to browse their profile you will see any DMs sent to you in their profile timeline.
If you remove a mute or block, DMs will start arriving as normal, but any DMs sent during the mute or block will only be visible by going to their profile.
Is there any way to allow DMs and mentions to work while muting someone?
Yes! If you mute someone through your server’s website or web app, there will be an option to allow notifications. If you allow notifications, then DMs and mentions by the muted account will still show up normally in your notifications.
Click Notifications (on the mobile website click ☰ and then Notifications)
Tick the box marked “Block direct messages from people you don’t follow”
Click the Save Changes button
If you change your mind, repeat these steps but untick the same box.
Also, if you are blocking DMs from strangers, you might want to mention this on your profile description to avoid any misunderstandings. (This avoids situations where people are trying to contact you for legitimate reasons but think you’re ignoring them.)
Another thing to bear in mind is it will also block private replies in threads from people you don’t follow, as these are technically the same as DMs on Mastodon.
Someone I’ve blocked on another server still seems to be able to interact with my posts, what’s going on?
Under certain circumstances people on certain other servers may be able to see and reply to your posts even if you block them. You won’t see their replies, but other people might. This isn’t the situation on most servers, but it can happen.
If you are having problems with your server, you might want to contact the person who runs your server, usually known as the server’s administrator or “admin”.
On Mastodon, you can find the public email address and account profile of your server admin on the server’s About page. This is visible without logging in, and it provides a way to contact the admin even if you lose access to your account for some reason. To find the About page:
Go to your server’s website, the website address is usually the same as the name of the server
Click on the Learn More link at the left (if you’re on desktop) or the ⋯ icon on the right (if you’re on mobile)
The admin’s public email address (labelled “CONTACT”) and a link to their profile page (labelled “ADMINISTERED BY”) will be near the top of the page
How do I find my server’s list of rules?
Go to the About page using the method above, but scroll down the page a bit until you get to the part marked Server Rules. Click this to reveal the rule list.
Each server is totally independent and sets its own rules, so it is worth reading this before joining a server. It is usually written in plain language that is easy to understand.
You can delete your Mastodon account at any time. There is no cool-off period, the deletion happens as soon as you confirm it.
⚠️ After you confirm deletion, it will immediately delete your account and all your posts, and they cannot be restored. You need to be 100% really sure you want to do this. When you confirm the deletion, your account will be gone forever and no one can bring it back.
If you’re totally sure you want to delete your account straight away and forever, here’s how to do it:
Click Proceed here and follow the instructions. It will ask you for your password to confirm the deletion.
You probably shouldn’t delete your account if you’re transferring to another server
The account transfer process lets you move your account to another server. However, the profile and posts from your old account remain on the old server and redirect people to your new account on the new server.
It’s a bad idea to delete your old account when transferring to a new server, as it will make it a lot harder for people who know about your old account to find your new account. Deleting the old account will also make all your old posts disappear, which removes yet another way that people might discover your new account.
Also, some of your followers may not transfer over to the new account the first time you do the transfer. You may want to redo the transfer again in the future to get these remaining followers transferred, but you can only do that if the old account still exists. See the guide to the transfer process for more details about this.
I deleted my account but I wish I hadn’t. Is there any way for the server admin to bring it back?
No. Once the account is deleted, it is deleted forever, no one can bring it back.
If I delete my account, can someone else register on that server and steal my old username?
No. If you delete your account, no one else can use your account address ever again. Each server keeps a list of its deleted accounts’ usernames, and blocks anyone from trying to register the username of a deleted account. If you want to sign up for a new account on the same server, you’ll need to think of a new username.
I can still see my account and some of my posts in search results on other servers, even though I deleted the account. What’s going on?
Once you delete your account, your server will start letting other servers know that the account is deleted and they will gradually remove anything to do with your deleted account. However, this can take time and some servers may still show remnants of your old account for a while longer. As time goes by these remnants will disappear, and they cannot be restored.
On Mastodon, if you’re logged in on your server’s website, you can log out by clicking on the ☰ and selecting Logout at the bottom of the menu. On desktop mode this is on the left of the screen next to your username, on mobile mode it’s in the top right corner.
If you’re logged in on the official apps, you can log out by clicking the ⚙️ settings icon and selecting Sign out at the bottom of the menu.
The third party apps will have various ways of logging out, usually on their settings pages.
However, you probably don’t need to log out of Mastodon!
Even if you have multiple accounts, as long as they are on separate servers you can be logged into all of them at once. Almost all the apps and the website interface support being signed in with multiple accounts, and you can switch between them whenever you want.
On the web interface, you can log into another account by just going to its server’s website and logging in on the same browser. They can even be kept open in separate tabs if you want to switch between them rapidly.
On apps, there will be a switcher that lets you add more accounts and switch between them. The official app lets you access its switcher by clicking and holding your profile picture in the bottom right corner of the screen.
When would I need to log out?
The most likely scenarios where you might need to regularly log out of Mastodon are:
If you have multiple accounts on the same server. However, this is probably a bad idea anyway as it means if something happens to that server you would lose all your accounts.
If you’re using a computer in public, for example in a library.
If you’re sharing a computer or other device with other people.
A server’s Local timeline shows all the public posts made by accounts on that server. Each server has a unique Local timeline because only that server has those accounts. It can be interesting to browse and follow the Local feed on different servers, especially those with a particular theme or atmosphere, and a good way to discover accounts to follow.
On most Mastodon servers, you can browse the Local timeline by going to the server’s website and clicking the Live Feeds link, which by default shows the Local timeline (it is labelled “This Site” on the website).
The Local timeline is scrolling far too fast! How do I slow it down?
I went to a server’s website without logging in, and there was no link to Live Feeds or Local?
Some server admins choose to hide their server’s Live Feeds section from people who aren’t logged in. Public posts from that server are still public and can be viewed by anyone, but they are no longer viewable in one convenient feed.
Server admins can find instructions on how to hide or show the Local/Live Feeds timeline at the end of this article.
Wait, what is it called? “Local” or “Live Feeds”?
The naming on Mastodon’s website software changed in 2023. The Local and Federated timelines are accessible from the new 🌎 Live Feeds page which has three tabs at the top:
This Site is the same as the Local timeline
All is the same as the Federated timeline
Other Servers is the Federated timeline but with the Local timeline posts hidden
However, Mastodon apps including the official app still call the Local timeline “Local”, and this is what most people call it when discussing it.
Can I follow other servers’ Local timelines?
Some third party Mastodon apps (Fedilab and Subway Tooter on Android, Ice Cubes on iPhone/iPad) let you follow the Local timelines of other servers. The website interface and the official apps do not have this feature yet.
Many, many people have asked for this feature to be added to the website interface. If you want to vote for this and you are comfortable using Github, click here and give a thumbs up to the first post in this thread ⧉. This will let the developers know that the feature is wanted.
How do I find interesting servers with nice Local timelines?
Also, if you see an interesting account on your own timelines, try going to its original page. This will take you to the account’s own server where you can usually browse its Local timeline.
I am a server admin. How do I hide or show the Local / Live Feeds timeline for people who aren’t logged in?
Click on Administration (if you’re on the mobile web you need to click ☰ in top right first)
Click on Server Settings
Click on Discovery tab at the top
Go to the box Allow unauthenticated access to public timelines and UN-tick this if you want to hide the Local/Live Feeds timeline, or tick the box if you want to show it.
Click the Save Changes button at the bottom of the screen
Most Fediverse server types including Mastodon have options to show three different timelines: Home, Local or Federated. They might have slightly different names depending on the server type, but they’re usually something like this.
Home is the normal timeline that you see by default. It shows you all the posts from all the people you follow in chronological order. This is what you see when you log in to your account.
Local (also known as Community or Live Feed: This Server) shows all the public posts made by all the people on your server. On larger servers this can be a so-called firehose that is too random and unfiltered. However, on smaller servers this can be a really interesting feed to read, especially if the server is well moderated. Many people on small servers discover new accounts to follow through the Local feed.
Yes. The Lists feature lets you make your own themed timelines with whatever accounts you choose.
How do I view different timelines on Mastodon?
By default you will see your Home timeline.
To see other timelines on the Mastodon website or the Mastodon web app, click the 🌎 Live Feeds link at the right of the screen, then select the tab at the top labelled This Server for the Local feed or All for the Federated feed. The Other Servers feed shows the Federated feed minus posts from the Local feed.
On third party Mastodon apps there will be various interfaces and icons for viewing Local and Federated timelines.
On the official Mastodon app, click the magnifying glass and then scroll to the Community tab, which will show you the Local feed. The official Mastodon app doesn’t show the Federated feed at all, but you can see it by using a third party app, the web app or your server’s website instead.
I can’t see any Local or Federated timelines on my server?
They’re in the Live feeds section of your server’s website, Local is the same as “Live feeds: This server” and Federated is the same as “Live feeds: All”.
The timelines are scrolling way too quickly, I can’t keep up with them! Help!
If you’re logged in through your Mastodon server’s website, you can optionally use “slow mode” to stop all automatic scrolling on feeds. When slow mode is activated, the feed will only show new posts when you manually click a special link at the top of the feed. To switch it on:
Log in through your server’s website
Go to ⚙️ Preferences
Tick the box marked Slow Mode, then click the button marked Save Changes
To deactivate slow mode, do exactly the same thing but UN-tick the Slow Mode box and click Save Changes.
Is there any way to view all the different timelines on the same screen?
Mastodon and the Fediverse have a number of common terms which you may not have heard of on other social networks. Here’s a guide:
Toots are posts, the Mastodon equivalent of tweets. The mascot for Mastodon is a mastodon, an ancient relative of the elephant ⧉, and “toot” is sort of the sound an elephant makes. Programmers sometimes call them statuses.
Boosts are shared posts, the Mastodon equivalent of a re-tweet. Programmers sometimes call them re-blogs. If you boost a post, it will appear in the home timelines of your followers.
Instances are the sites you can sign up on on the Fediverse, also known as “servers”. They were also known as “communities” for a while, and some people call them “nodes”. All of these are just different names for exactly the same thing: the site you signed up on. If someone talks about Fediverse instances, they are talking about Fediverse servers, they are one and the same.
“Birdsite” and “Hellsite” are nicknames for Twitter, sometimes indicated by a bird on fire (it’s a comment on how discussions on Twitter very often turn into horrible arguments).
Vanilla Mastodon means standard unaltered Mastodon software, which most Mastodon servers use. Some servers use non-standard altered versions of Mastodon, such as Glitch or Hometown, and they work just as well as vanilla but tend to have more features and options.
The easiest way to invite friends, family or colleagues to join you on the Fediverse is to send them a link to JoinMastodon.org ⧉ or Fedi.Garden ⧉ or another Fediverse “on-boarding” website. Once they’ve signed up on a server, they can use their account to sign in on their server’s website or on a comptible app.
Once your friends are on the Fediverse, you can exchange addresses with them and follow each other. You don’t need to be on the same server as them, following and interacting with each other is the same experience even if you’re on different servers.
How do I invite people to join my server? Can I invite people if sign-ups are closed?
If you do want people to sign up on the same server as you, there’s an “invite” feature on Mastodon which lets you invite them directly to your server:
Click on Invite people at the left of the screen (if you’re on the mobile website click ☰ in the top right and then Invite people)
Choose the settings you want for your invitation link and then click Generate.
Some servers close themselves to new sign-ups if they get too full, but still allow existing members to generate invitations. If your friend is unable to sign up on your server directly due to it closing to new members, they may still be able to sign up if you send them an invitation.
I can’t see any “Invite people” link my server. Why is that?
Server admins can optionally switch off the invitation system. If they do this, the “Invite people” link will disappear.
Mastodon can be displayed in dark mode, light mode or sometimes other colour schemes as well.
How do I set dark or light mode on a mobile app?
Colour schemes depend on which app you’re using, but generally they all have some kind of colour setting in their Settings menu, often in a section labelled “Appearance” or “Themes” or “Colours”.
In the dropdown menu Site theme select the colour scheme you want
Click the Save changes button
Are there any other options apart from dark and light?
Yes, but it depends on how you access Mastodon.
Some apps have lots of themes to choose from, and/or they let you customise the individual colours used by the interface.
The website and web app come with a dark theme, light theme and high contrast theme by default, but they also include the ability for the admin to add custom third party themes. If you want more themes on your server’s website, ask your server admin about it. For example here’s a popular third party theme called Tangerine ⧉ and there’s an admin’s guide to setting custom CSS here.
Can I set the colour scheme to match my phone or laptop settings?
Some apps have an option to match your device’s settings for dark more and light mode. This is usually presented alongside the themes.
If you’re using the website or web app, this doesn’t yet have an option to match your device setting.
Mastodon has two ways to mark posts: Favourites and Bookmarks. These are similar, but they differ in important ways. Here’s a quick comparison:
Favourites can be added by clicking on the star icon ⭐ below a post. Favourites are pretty much the Mastodon equivalent of likes, and usually used to indicate you enjoy or appreciate a post. When you add a favourite, the person who posted it will get a notification, and your profile may be visible on the list of people who favourited it.
Bookmarks can be added either by clicking on the bookmark icon 🔖 below a post, or if it isn’t visible click on the ⋯ to open the menu and select Bookmark. Bookmarks are totally private, no one else sees what you bookmark. No one gets any notifications when you add a bookmark.
Why are there two separate features that are so similar?
Because people use Favourites for likes, their favourites list can become unreadably large as it is full of posts that people enjoyed reading but don’t want to refer to later.
Bookmarks let you create a much shorter list of posts you do want to go back to later, rather than an enormous list of all the posts you enjoyed.
How do I browse my favourites and bookmarks?
If you’re using Mastodon through your server’s website or the web app, click the Favourites or Bookmarks icons at the right side of the screen.
On third party and official apps, you can usually see your favourites and bookmarks by going to your profile page (click on the icon containing your profile image to see your profile page). Favourites are usually indicated by a star icon, Bookmarks by a bookmark icon.
Can I transfer my bookmarks and favourites if I migrate my account to another server?
You can transfer your bookmarks (see steps 2 and 3 in the account transfer guide), but you can’t transfer your favourites.
If you’re used to Twitter, you may be wondering why there’s no equivalent of the “quote tweet” on Mastodon.
This was a deliberate design decision taken many years ago by the makers of Mastodon. Here are the lead developer’s comments on it:
Another feature that has been requested almost since the start, and which I keep rejecting is quoting messages. Coming back to my disclaimer, of course it’s impossible to prevent people from sharing screenshots or linking to public resources, but quoting messages is immediately actionable. It makes it a lot easier for people to immediately engage with the quoted content… and it usually doesn’t lead to anything good. When people use quotes to reply to other people, conversations become performative power plays. “Heed, my followers, how I dunk on this fool!” When you use the reply function, your message is broadcast only to people who happen to follow you both. It means one person’s follower count doesn’t play a massive role in the conversation. A quote, on the other hand, very often invites the followers to join in on the conversation, and whoever has got more of them ends up having the upper hand and massively stressing out the other person.
Comments in 2023 by the same lead developer imply that they are considering introducing some kind of quote post feature, possibly with an opt-in system to prevent quoting without consent. Also, quoting posts is in the “Planned” category of the official Mastodon roadmap ⧉.
But I have already seen posts with things quoted in them! What is going on?
However, as far as Mastodon is concerned, at a technical level this not a quoted post but a normal post with some quote-style formatting within it, together with text copied from another post.
Some Mastodon apps say they allow quoting? How can they do this if quoting isn’t possible on Mastodon?
Some third party Mastodon apps do have a quote feature, but this usually only looks like a quoted post to other people using the same app. If you’re viewing it through the official apps or the website interface, it looks like a normal post with text from another post copy-pasted into it.
And again, at a technical level these kinds of “quote posts” are treated by standard Mastodon servers as a normal post with text copied into it from another post.
Is there any workaround I can do to quote posts in standard Mastodon?
In the absence of any official quoting feature, you can just copy the text from the post you want to quote and include a link back to the original, so that people can see it in context. You might also want to mention the author’s account in your post so they know they are being quoted.
Pinned posts are posts that appear at the top of your profile page, above your normal posts. Many people use them as introductions, but they can be used for any purpose, for example artists often use them as mini-portfolios with images, video or audio attached.
Go to one of your own posts that you want to pin, click the ⋯ icon on the post and select Pin to profile.
The post will now be pinned to your profile. To unpin it, click ⋯ on the post and select Unpin.
You can pin up to five posts at once on your Mastodon profile, and you can also reply to a pinned post to create a pinned thread. By creating pinned threads, you can extend each pinned post to whatever length you want.
Pinned posts will be the first thing people see when they look at your profile, and for various technical reasons pinned posts will be more widely seen on the Fediverse than normal posts. (For technical people interested in this topic, Mastodon servers which encounter your account for the first time will automatically “backfill” all pinned posts on your profile. The backfilling also applies to the same user’s replies in pinned threads.)
Why would I use pinned posts when I already have a profile description?
Pinned posts let you greatly expand your profile description, allowing not just text but also images, audio and video. For example, artists might pin posts with their works attached as a portfolio. You can also fit a lot more text onto pinned posts, especially if you use your full limit of five pinned posts.
The pinned posts are shown in the order they were pinned, with latest pinning at the top. To put a pinned post at the top, click on the post and then unpin it, then pin it again. You can use this technique to put the pinned posts in the correct order.
(NOTE: If you’re reordering pinned posts, don’t unpin a post without clicking on it first. When you unpin a post, it will disappear from the pinned section and it may be harder to find it again from amongst your ordinary posts. If you click on it first you will be taken to the enlarged view of the post, and it won’t disappear when you unpin.)
Screenshot of Mastodon web interface with Edit button highlighted
Mastodon lets you edit your posts after they have been published. It lets you edit the text itself, add attachments, add text descriptions to the attachments, add polls, or change the post’s language setting. Here’s how it works:
Go to one of your posts that you want to edit
Click the ⋯ icon at the bottom of the post
Select Edit
Make the changes you want
When you’ve finished editing, click Save Changes
This works on your server’s website, the official apps and third party apps. Third party apps may have a slightly different interface depending on which app you use.
(There was a bug in the first version of editing which meant you couldn’t edit image descriptions. However, version 4.1.0 of the Mastodon server software fixed this.)
What’s to stop someone abusing this feature by changing a post’s contents after it’s shared?
There are several features to prevent abuse of editing:
When a post is edited, everyone who has shared it will receive a notification in case they want to un-share it.
Edited posts are labelled as edited with an “edit history” or “last edited” link
Clicking on the edited label displays the full contents of all previous versions of that post, so that others can see all the changes that have been made to it.
These measures together reduce the chance of anyone abusing the editing feature.
I can’t see the “edited” label on a post I know is edited. Where is it?
It may be called different things (“Edit History”, “Last Edited” etc) on different apps and interfaces. Also, if you’re viewing the post on a timeline, you may need to click on the post so that you’re seeing its full view in order for the edit history link to be visible.
Can I edit my post’s visibility setting?
No. For technical reasons you cannot change a post’s visibility after it has been published.
If you absolutely have to change the visibility anyway, use the Delete & redraft option instead, which deletes the post and breaks any links etc, but puts a copy of it into the editing box so you don’t have to retype it all.
What if I accidentally post something confidential or sensitive? Can I edit it out?
If you accidentally post something you want to keep secret, you should delete your post as soon as possible. Editing is not a good idea if you need to remove sensitive information, because people are still able to see previous versions of the post, so the information would still be visible.
(The reason previous versions are visible on edited posts is to prevent abuse of the editing feature, such as “bait and switch” tactics where people post something inoffensive and then change it to something offensive.)
⚠️ Warning about editing polls
You can edit polls too, but if you edit the options on the poll it will reset the votes to zero, even if people have already voted. This vote reset happens without warning, so be really sure you want to reset the poll before you edit its options!
You can edit the main text of a poll post without problems though, it’s only editing the options that people vote for that causes a reset.
If I edit a post to mention someone’s account, do they get a notification about it?
No. If you publish a post, then edit it to add a mention of someone’s account, they don’t get notified. Mentions only generate a notification if they’re included when the post is first published.
There are many ways to share posts from Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse. Which method you use depends on what kind of sharing you want to do.
How to share posts with people who follow me on Mastodon and the Fediverse
Click the Boost button below a post, which is usually a pair of spinning arrows, something like this 🔃 This will share the post in the Home timelines of everyone who follows you, and will also share it on your own profile’s timeline. (Boosting is also called a “re-blog” on some apps, but they mean the same thing.)
How to share posts with people outside the Fediverse
If you’re using a mobile app, there is usually a Share option below posts which is often shown as an arrow leaving a square. This will give you a range of things you can do including sharing a post on other apps on your device, just click the icon of the app you want to share the post to. There will also be options for opening the post in your web browser, or copying a link the post to your device’s clipboard so you can paste the link elsewhere.
How do I get a copy of a direct link to a post?
If you’re on a mobile app, click the Share button (the icon that looks like a square with an arrow leaving it), one of the options should be to copy a link to the post.
If you’re using Mastodon through the website or the web app, here’s how you can get a direct link to a post:
Go to the post you want the link for
Click the ⋯ below the post
Select Copy link to this post
How do I embed a Mastodon post on a website or blog?
Mastodon’s website interface and web app let you copy embedding code for any post, which you can then paste into a website or blog that supports pasting custom HTML. See the embedding guide for more details on how to do this.
Every Mastodon server (and some other Fedi server types) can add their own custom emoji, which can be used alongside standard emoji. People on other servers can see your server’s custom emoji, but cannot type them. The emoji can be stills, or short animations within certain size limits.
Here’s how to use them:
If you’re logged in through your server’s website, you can access the custom emoji through by clicking the emoji picker icon 🙂 in the top right of the post writing window. The picker normally has custom emoji at the top and the standard ones below them.
if you’re using apps, the custom and standard emoji are normally in two separate menus. For standard emoji use the emoji button on your phone’s own on-screen keyboard, for custom emoji use the app’s own emoji icon when writing a post.
Server administrators can add any emoji they want. If you have ideas for custom emoji, contact your server’s admin and tell them about it. When admins add an emoji, everyone on their server is able to use it.
Admins can also block offensive custom emoji from other servers, so if you see any offensive emojis let your admin know by reporting that particular post.
On Mastodon, you can attach up to four images, or one video file, or one audio file when making a post. Click on the attachment icon which usually looks like a landscape 🌄 icon or paperclip 📎 to attach something to your post.
Images can be PNG, JPG, HEIF, WEBP, AVIF or GIF (including animated GIFs). The maximum file size is usually 16MB per image.
Video clips can be MP4, M4V, MOV or WebM files. The maximum file size is usually 99MB, but there is no limit on running time.
Audio clips can be MP3, OGG, WAV, FLAC, OPUS, AAC, M4A or 3GP files. The maximum file size is usually 99MB, but there is no limit on running time.
File size limits may vary on different servers, but these are the documented defaults. Ask your server admin if you have problems with uploads. Note that if your server is unusually busy then file uploads may slow down or stop for a while.
The file size limits quoted above are from the official documentation. However, there’s some indcation in the source code that they’ve been raised in updates, so you may well find you can upload much larger files.
Making your posts accessible for blind or deaf people
Remember to add text descriptions to attached files before posting, so that they can be accessible to people with disabilities. You can do this by clicking Edit on the file before posting, or writing on top of the attachment itself on some apps. For video clips, remember to describe both the audio and video, so that both deaf and blind people are able to find out what’s going on.
How do I post GIFs in Mastodon?
There is no GIF picker built into Mastodon due to the federated nature of the Fediverse and the need to protect privacy. However, there are three methods for adding GIFs to Mastodon posts:
If you post a link to GIF it will automatically be embedded when you post it, as if the GIF had been chosen from a picker.
If you have the actual GIF file stored on your computer or phone, you can upload it as an image attachment.
Some phones or tablets have a GIF picker built into their on-screen keyboard.
How long can the video or audio attachments be?
Any length! There is no time limit on video or audio, there’s only the file size limit. To post a longer file, reduce its quality so that it stays within the size limit.
How do audio files play?
Mastodon’s web interface and most of the apps have a built-in audio player, some of them with visualisers.
How do I set the artwork for audio?
After you’ve attached an audio file, click the Edit button and then choose an image for the artwork. If you don’t set an image, it will use your profile picture as artwork.
The description has disappeared from the audio file!
If you’ve added a text description to an audio file and it vanishes, add it again and it should remain there okay. There seems to be an intermittent bug that sometimes deletes descriptions from audio attachments when you first upload them.
The visibility of a post or reply on Mastodon depends on its visibility setting. These settings decide which other accounts have permission to see that particular post or reply.
On Mastodon there are four types of post visibility. You can set the visibility of a post by clicking the icon that represents it in the row below the message editing window. It’s usually a 🌐, 🔒, 👥 or @ icon, but some apps may use slightly different icons.
Some more details about each setting:
Public – Anyone can see it, even people who aren’t on the Fediverse, and the posts will be visible in searches on Mastodon. If you go to a person’s public profile page you will see all their public posts. This is normally indicated by a globe icon 🌎.
Unlisted (aka Quiet Public) – Anyone can see it, but it won’t appear in the trending posts list or the Local or Federated timelines, and it won’t show up in search results. This can be useful for replying in threads, so that you’re not filling people’s timelines unnecessarily. Normally indicated by an open lock icon or a crescent moon.
Followers-only – Only your followers can see these, normally indicated by a closed lock 🔒 or people 👥 icon. If you use this setting, it’s a good idea to switch on follower requests, otherwise anyone could follow you to see your followers-only posts.
Mentioned (aka Specific People) – Only people you @ within the message can see the post, normally indicated by an @ symbol. Be really careful who you @ because they will see the post.
Local – Only people on your server can see it. This option is only available on servers running Hometown Mastodon ⧉ or Glitch Mastodon ⧉. Most people are on servers running standard Mastodon and will not have this option.
Sending DMs in Mastodon
You can send people messages by setting a post’s visibility to @ Mentioned, then @ the people you want to receive the DM. If you use your server’s website or the web app, there’s a Private Mentions option in the menu which lets you see all your mentioned posts in a separate inbox.
⚠️ If you @ someone they will be able to see it, even in DMs or Followers-Only modes
In all modes including DMs and Followers-Only, if you @ someone in a post they will see that post! Because of this, you need to be really careful who you @ in a post.
If you absolutely have to mention an account but don’t want them to see it, try replacing the @ symbols with the word “AT” instead and make sure you’re using a visibility they don’t have access to such as Followers-Only (if they don’t follow you) or Mentions. Removing the @ symbol will break the address, and prevent the account holder seeing the mention.
I can’t see Unlisted as an option on my app?
Unlisted is available as a visibility option on almost all versions of Mastodon including the website, the web app and the third party apps. However, for some strange reason it is not included on the official apps.
If you want the official apps to support Unlisted and you’re comfortable using Github, you can let the developers know you want it added on the iOS version ⧉ and the Android version ⧉.
Click on ⚙️ Preferences (or ⚙️ on mobile web) at the right of the screen
Click on Other at the left of the screen (or ☰ and then Other on mobile web)
In the Posting Privacy dropdown menu, choose the default visibility you want
Click the Save changes button in the top right
NOTE: This is only a default setting. You can always set it to a different visibility for individual posts or replies by clicking their visibility icon when you’re writing them.
Is it possible to edit post visibility after it is published?
You cannot edit the visibility of a post or reply after you’ve published it, so make sure you choose the correct visibility when writing it.
If you absolutely have to change the visibility, your only option is to delete the post and start again, which is most easily done by clicking ⋯ below the post and then Delete & re-draft. If you use this option, the original post will cease to exist, its boosts and bookmarks will disappear, links to it will break and its replies will be orphaned.
Who can see my boosts?
When you boost a post, it will immediately appear in the home timelines of all your followers. The original author of the post will also get a notification to say that you boosted their post.
When do replies appear in the Home timeline?
Replies will appear in your Home timeline if any one of these are true:
The reply mentions you
You wrote the reply
The reply is by someone you follow AND mentions someone else you follow
Someone you follow is replying to themselves to create a thread
Someone you’re following has boosted the reply
When do Unlisted posts and replies appear in the Home timeline?
In Home timelines, Unlisted posts and replies will appear exactly like public posts and replies. Unlisted posts will only be hidden in the Federated and Local timelines, in search results and in the trending posts list.
What about visibility in searches? How do I set the searchability of posts?
Posts and replies will only show up in search results if they have a Public visibility setting. If you want a post or reply to be searchable, you need to set its visibility to Public.
You also need to decide if you want your public posts and replies to be searchable by full text or just by hashtags. By default it’s just hashtags, but you can also allow the entire contents to be searched by opting into the full text search system.
What about Local-only visibility? How do I make a post only visible to people on my server?
Servers running the standard version of Mastodon do not have a Local-only visibility setting. However, servers running forks of Mastodon such as Hometown Mastodon ⧉ or Glitch Mastodon ⧉ may include a fifth visibility setting called “Local” or “Local only”.
Posts or replies using the Local visibility setting can only be seen by people whose accounts are on the same server.
If I’m replying to someone else’s post, do I have to use the same visibility setting on my reply? How do I send a private reply?
You can adjust your reply to have any visibility setting you want, regardless of the original post’s setting. Bear in mind though that some settings may exclude the author of the original post from seeing your reply.
If you want to send a post’s author a private reply, use the @ Mentioned visibility and make sure you @ them in the reply.
What about federation? How widely can my posts be seen by people on other servers?
Yes, it is now available to all Mastodon servers. If your server is running the service, you will see a “Translate” link underneath a post in a different language. If you don’t see these links, ask your server admin about it.
My server has translation services available and there’s a post in a foreign language, but it doesn’t have a translate link below it. What’s going on?
The feature relies on knowing which language you speak, so make sure your account’s language preferences are set correctly, as this will allow the system to automatically suggest translations for you.
The feature also relies on the person writing the post to have used the appropriate language setting for their post. If they have the incorrect language setting on a post, it may confuse the translation system. This is why it is important to set your posting language correctly too, so that your posts can be translated more easily by others.
There are lots of language options on Mastodon to help you understand other people, and help other people understand you. At the time of writing there are 95 different languages and dialects to choose from.
Choosing your interface language
The interface language is the language used on menus, buttons, labels, forms etc when you are logged in. To choose your Mastodon interface language:
Click the link marked Other on the left of the page (on the mobile website click ☰ and then Other)
Scroll down to the section marked Filter languages
Tick the boxes for languages you want to see
Click the Save changes button
To switch the language filter off (so that you see all languages), make sure all the boxes are UN-ticked and click the Save changes button
When the language filter is on, posts in other languages will no longer appear in your timelines. However, if you follow someone this will override the language filter and show you all their posts regardless of language used.
Choosing your posting language
It’s important to set your posting language, because it means people using language filters to show your language will see your posts. Setting this also allows other people to automatically translate your posts using Mastodon’s built-in translation system.
To set which language you post in:
Log in through your server’s website
Click ⚙️ Preferences
Click Other (if you’re using the mobile website click ☰ and then Other)
In the section marked Posting language choose which language you use most often and click Save changes (by default the posting language will be the same as your interface language)
If you post in multiple languages, you can change which language you’re using each time you’re writing a post:
Write the post but don’t publish it yet
Select the language you are writing from the language button at the bottom of the post creation box. The language button shows your current language setting.
By default the button will be your selected posting language, unless you are replying to a post marked in another language in which case it will be set to that language.
The language button should remember your most recently chosen languages at the top of the menu.
Filtering search results by language
You can filter your search results on Mastodon to only show posts in particular languages by including the search operator “language:(LANGUAGE CODE)” using language codes from this list. For example to only show posts in French include the term language:fr in searches.
Wait! I’m still seeing languages I don’t understand in my Home timeline! Why aren’t the filters hiding them?
Unfortunately if you follow an account or a hashtag, this overrides the language filters, so by default you’ll see all posts in all languages on the Home timeline.
There is a workaround for filtering the language of accounts you’re following, but it’s slightly more fiddly than general language filters:
Go to the profile page of the account you want to filter by language.
Click ︙ and select Change subscribed languages
Tick the boxes for the languages you want to see
Click the Save Changes button
You have to do this for any account you’re following where you want to restrict which languages it shows. For example, if ten people you follow are posting in languages you don’t want to see you’ll have to do this for each of those ten accounts.
Obviously this isn’t as easy as just setting a single language filter, and if you’re following lots of people who post in many languages it can take a while to set preferences for each of them. Also, this option isn’t even available for followed hashtags. This situation isn’t satisfactory, and you may want to give feedback to the developers about this at the links below.
On the official Mastodon apps click on the magnifying glass at the bottom of the screen without entering anything into the search box, this will automatically make the trends appear. There’s also a Community tab in the same section which is your server’s Local timeline.
Third party apps display trends in various different ways using their own interfaces. However, they usually use the word “Trending” in some way. Often you can find the trends link in the main settings menu, but this will vary from app to app.
What makes a post trend on Mastodon?
Posts trend if they are new and have many recent boosts. Only one post per account can trend at a time, to prevent popular accounts dominating the trending section.
What makes a hashtag trend on Mastodon?
Tags trend if many people have used them recently.
What if I see an offensive post, hashtag or link trending?
Hopefully this won’t happen, as your server admin can optionally screen posts, tags and links before they are allowed to trend.
If you see something offensive trending, contact your server admin and ask them if they are screening trends.
I am a server admin, how do I screen trending posts/tags/links?
Log in through the website, click ⚙️ Preferences, then click Trends.
If you’re on the mobile site you will need to click the ⚙️ icon on right of screen, then ☰ in top right, then Trending Posts, Trending Hashtags or Trending Links.
Note that for links you can moderate both individual links and the sites they come from.
What is the News section in Explore?
News just shows the most shared links on posts visible to your server, whether they’re from news sources or any website. Often this will be news items (hence the name), but not always.
Can any link trend on the News section? What do I do if I see dubious news sources trending?
Your server’s admin can optionally choose to moderate which sites’ links end up in the News section. By setting a trusted set of sources, your admin can prevent the trending news section being hijacked by people spreading less trustworthy sources.
If you see a news source trending which shouldn’t be, contact your admin and they will be able to block it from appearing on the trends.
What about the People section in Explore? Are these trending people?
No. They’re just automated suggestions for accounts you might want to follow. It’s a bit unclear why these suggestions are listed next to the trends, to be honest!
Can I view trends on other servers?
Yes. Most servers have a link to their # Explore section on their websites, and you usually don’t need to be logged in to browse this. The trending posts and tags on different servers will be slightly different as they have different views of the Fediverse. You do need to be logged in if you want to interact with the posts, however.
When you follow someone you’ll see all their posts in your home timeline in chronological order. No posts will be hidden, but when you follow a lot of people it can be easy to miss some of the posts because there may be just so many of them.
On Mastodon, if there are particular accounts where you want to make sure you see their posts, you can set these accounts to also notify you when they post. They will still be in your timeline as normal, but you’ll also get an an alert in your Notifications section.
Go to the profile of the person you want to be notified about
Click the bell icon 🔔 next to their follow/unfollow button.
Note that this only works for people you follow. Also, if you want to stop notifications just click the same bell icon again.
Can I do this through apps too?
Yes and no. The official apps don’t have notification bells yet, but some third party ones do such as Ice Cubes on iPhone/iPad, or Tusky and Fedilab on Android. The ones that support the notification bell usually show an actual bell icon, but some may have a slightly different icon.
If you want your account to be discovered by more people with similar interests, here are some tips:
Write something about yourself on your profile. It doesn’t have to be personal info, but it should let people know you’re a human being and give them some idea of what you’re interested in. Totally blank profiles are less likely to show up in search results, and can be off-putting for potential followers.
If you want the entire text of your public posts to be completely searchable, even without any hashtags, you can opt into being part of the full text search system. This will make your posts show up a lot more easily and more often in search results.
Use the correct visibility settings on your posts. Public posts are visible to everyone, but followers-only posts will only be visible to your followers. You don’t have to choose just one setting though, you can give different posts different visibilities.
Also, if you have a website, you might want to verify the website link too, as this will make people know you’re the owner of the site and also make your account appear on discovery services such as StreetPass ⧉.
Make sure the first line of your profile text sums you up well, as Fediverse discovery systems often only show the first line.
If you want to, add a profile picture and header image, but these are both optional. Blind people often don’t use images on their profiles, so it is totally normal for a profile to have no images on it.
Write a public post saying something about yourself, and include the hashtags #Introduction, #Introductions and #NewHere. Try also searching for these hashtags and replying to other people’s introductions.
If you want to be seen by other people from your country, try adding your country’s flag to your profile as this will make it easier for people to find you. (However, obviously be careful as in some countries certain flags may have nasty extremist connotations.)
Remember to use hashtags in posts that you want to be discovered, as lots of people follow hashtags and they are a very popular discovery method on the Fediverse.
Try joining and posting to Fediverse groups, they are seen even more widely than hashtags and can be a good way to connect with others interested in specific topics.
On Mastodon, log in through your server’s website or web app, go to your profile page, click Edit profile and then click the Privacy and Reach tab, then tick the box marked Feature profile and posts in discovery algorithms and finally click Save changes. This will add you to automated follow suggestions that others may see. (Note that these aren’t really algorithms in the common sense of the word, they don’t use mysterious complex calculations and they aren’t designed to drive engagement. They are just simple bits of open source code that feature accounts followed by many people on your server.)
When to post your best content
Don’t post your best content when you have literally zero followers. Fediverse servers “notice” posts from accounts that their members follow. If you post stuff when you have 0 followers then your post won’t be visible to anyone except users on your own server. Even having a handful of followers will make your posts a lot more visible, because all of your followers’ servers will notice what you post. Once a public post is noticed by a server, all of the server’s members will be able to discover it by searching.
Also, because the timelines on the Fediverse are chronological it’s important to bear in mind the timezones your followers are in. For example if you were posting about something of interest to Australians, it would be best to post it when most people in Australia are awake. If you want to reach people in several different timezones, try to choose a time where their days overlap so that most of them are awake too.
If you’re on Mastodon, you can follow other Mastodon accounts of course, but you can also follow accounts from other types of Fediverse server such as Pixelfed, PeerTube, Friendica, OwnCast, BookWyrm etc.
How do I follow accounts from other kinds of servers?
Exactly like you would follow accounts from Mastodon servers, you just click Follow on their profiles.
The following process on the Fediverse is so seamless that you probably won’t even notice you are following accounts outside Mastodon! No matter what kind of server they are on, all accounts will look like Mastodon accounts when viewed from Mastodon (and vice versa from their point of view). Fediverse servers always display content in their own style, regardless of the style used on the server the content came from.
How do I check what an account looks like on its own server?
If you’re using Masto through the website, you can see what an account really looks like by going to its profile’s original page. This will show you the account’s profile page on its own server.
What if I can’t find an account listed on Mastodon? How do I get it to appear within Mastodon?
There are lots of ways to discover interesting accounts on topics you are interested in, see below for a complete list.
(If you want to follow people you already know in real life, the most reliable way to do that is to exchange account addresses with them. Click here to go to the account address guide.)
Do a keyword search
You can find a lot of interesting accounts nowadays just by typing keywords into the search box on Mastodon. Once the results come up, choose the Profiles section to only see accounts. (Searching for profiles works a lot better after changes made in the Mastodon 4.2.0 update from September 2023.)
Follow hashtags
Maybe the easiest way to discover new accounts on particular topics is to follow hashtags. Posts with followed tags will appear in your home timeline automatically as soon as they’re posted, so you don’t have to go looking for them. Click here for more details on how to follow hashtags.
Browse directories
Another method is to browse human-run Fediverse directories. They only list a fraction of the users on the Fedi, but they’re a really good way of beginning the process of building up your timeline. The accounts you follow will also share posts from others, and soon you’ll be discovering even more new accounts just by browsing your own timeline.
Here are some good Fediverse directories:
Fedi.Directory ⧉ is a human-curated collection of Fediverse accounts that tend to post about specific topics, so it’s a smaller selection but with more guaranteed quality. (By the way, as mentioned above, I’m the one who maintains this directory 🙂)
Trunk is a community-run opt-in directory ⧉ of people looking for followers. Users decide which categories they go in, and the listings are moderated by the site’s maintainers.
OwnCast Directory ⧉ is a directory of livestreamers and livestreams using the OwnCast software. If an account has their Fediverse feature activated, there will be a Follow button on their OwnCast website.
Look at trending posts and hashtags
Mastodon has a built-in feature for seeing which posts and hashtags are trending, this can help you discover interesting accounts and active topics:
To access trends on your server’s website, click the # Explore link on the right of the screen. You can also browse Explore on other servers’ websites if you want to, as it doesn’t require logging in.
To access trends on the official apps click the magnifying glass and leave the search box blank. There’s no Explore label on the official apps, but it’s the same contents as Explore. This will show you trending posts and hashtags which will help you discover even more interesting people.
You can also see trending posts and hashtags on third party apps, they will have their own interfaces for seeing them, usually labelled “Trending” or similar.
Trending posts are based on how often they have been recently shared, trending hashtags are based on how often they have been recently used.
Join Groups
Groups are special kinds of accounts which share posts on particular topics. If you want to post to the group, you just mention the group’s account and your post gets shared with all the group’s followers. Click here for more details about groups and how they work.
Pay attention to posts that other people share
When you follow an account it will usually share interesting posts by others too, and those shared posts might be good accounts to follow too. There is no algorithm on Mastodon and the Fediverse, it’s all human beings, and word of mouth is a significant way to discover interesting accounts.
If you browse a profile’s follows and followers without going to the original page, it will just show accounts from your server. That’s why the original page is better as it shows you the complete lists.
Follow FediFollows
I run an account over at @FediFollows@social.growyourown.services ⧉ which publishes themed lists of interesting accounts to follow, with a new topic every day. The accounts are all hand picked and currently active. You can also browse previously suggested accounts organised into categories at fedi.directory ⧉.
Follow curators
There are human-run accounts dedicated to sharing interesting posts on specific topics or areas. Following them can offer you lots of suggestions for interesting accounts to follow.
FediVideo ⧉ shares videos and livestreams from around the Fediverse. If you’re interested in video-based Fedi accounts to follow, this is a good way to discover them. You can follow at @FediVideo@social.growyourown.services ⧉.
The account @curator@mastodon.art ⧉ shares lots of interesting art accounts of all types. If you’re interested in discovering artists you should follow them.
Follow the hashtag #FollowFriday
The tradition of #FollowFriday is alive on the Fediverse, you can follow the hashtag to see people’s suggested follows each week.
Install StreetPass for Mastodon on your web browser
There’s a free open source web browser extension called StreetPass for Mastodon ⧉ which checks if websites you’re browsing have featured their Mastodon address using a verified link. The extension gradually builds up a list of Mastodon accounts you might want to follow, based on which sites you’ve browsed.
Search for flag emoji to find accounts in particular countries
You can also use Mastodon’s search function to search for standard emoji. If you paste or type a particular country’s flag emoji into the search box, it will show you accounts and posts using that flag, which are usually located in the flag’s country.
For example, if you put the Swedish flag 🇸🇪 into the search box, most of the profiles containing that emoji are Swedish.
Hang out on the timelines
Finally, the most traditional approach to discovery is simply to hang out on the timeline, search for particular hashtags, browse the Local or Federated timelines and follow any accounts you find interesting.
The Mastodon equivalent of “Likes” are “Favourites”, click the star ⭐ to favourite a post. Favouriting tells the author that you liked their post, but does not affect the post’s visibility at all.
The Mastodon equivalent of a “Re-Tweet” is a “Boost” (and some apps call it a “Re-Blog”). To boost a post, click the circular arrows icon 🔃 or the rocket ship 🚀. Boosted posts will appear in the timeline of everyone who follows you, and boosting will also help a post appear on the trending posts chart in the Explore tab. Boosts are the only way to make a post more visible.
There’s also a third option called “Bookmarks” which lets you keep a private list of posts you want to read later. Only you can see your bookmarks, the people you bookmark do not know about it. To bookmark a post click ⋯ underneath the post and then “Bookmark” (some interfaces will also show a bookmark logo which you can click instead).
How do I browse all my Favourites and Bookmarks?
All your favourites and bookmarks are stored for you to browse, but are not shown to the public. Here’s how to browse them:
On the official Mastodon apps, go to your profile page and click on the star or bookmark icons at the top of the page.
Third party apps will have various interfaces, try looking on your profile page or on the options/settings menus.
How do I browse my past Boosts?
You can see all your past Boosts by browsing your profile page, they will be mixed in with your own posts in chronological order based on when you boosted them.
The boost button on a particular post is greyed out and I can’t click on it. What is going on?
If the post you want to boost has a non-public visibility setting, it may not be possible for you to share it with your followers. If this is the case, the boost button will be greyed out and you will not be able to click on it.
My bookmarks are disappearing! Is this normal?
Bookmarks should not be disappearing. If this is happening to you, it is probably because your server has an incorrect setting for “Content cache retention period”. Please let your server admin know if this is happening, and send them this link to a guide for how to fix it.
You can search for posts and profiles on Mastodon by typing ordinary words or hashtags or emoji into the search box:
To search on the official app, tap the magnifying glass icon at the bottom of the screen, and type in the search box at the top of the screen. The results will appear below it.
To search on your server’s website, type into the search box and press enter. The results will appear beside or below the search box, depending on your window size.
If you’re using the website through a phone, click on the 🔍 magnifying glass icon at the top.
Third party apps will have various interfaces for search, but they’re usually quite obvious, using a magnifying glass icon or the word “search”. (One exception is Toot! which has its search function bizarrely hidden away in the ⋯ menu in the top right corner.)
What order are search results shown in on Mastodon?
Chronological, with newest posts at the top.
How do I make my own posts more visible in search results?
If you want your post to be more easily found in searches, opt into full text searches and also include relevant hashtags. Remember to use CamelCase on hashtags that contain multiple words. Hashtags are really good for actively indicating a topic being discussed, instead of a word just used accidentally or incidentally.
Although hashtags are no longer required to appear in search results on Mastodon servers, hashtags are still important in making posts visible, because many people follow hashtags and many people search for them (especially as some servers still only allow hashtag searches). You can find out more about hashtags in this special guide.
How do I search just my own posts?
To search just your own posts, include the phrase from:me in your search. If you want to also search posts that you’ve interacted with (such as bookmarks, likes, boosts), include the phrase in:library in your search.
There are lots more operators like this, scroll further down this page to see them all.
Are there any special operators for filtering searches on Mastodon?
Yes, Mastodon 4.2.0 introduces a number of operators you can use to filter your search results with:
has:media – Only shows posts with an attachment (images, audio, video)
has:poll – Only shows posts with a poll
has:embed – Only shows posts with a link that produces some kind of embedded media (such as a YouTube or PeerTube link)
is:sensitive – Only shows posts marked as sensitive
from:(FEDIVERSE ADDRESS HERE) – Only shows posts by that particular user, for example from:@FediTips@social.growyourown.services
from:me – Only shows posts you have made yourself
in:all – Searches all posts visible to you
in:library – Only searches other people’s posts you have interacted with (such as bookmarks, favourites, boosts etc) or your own posts
before:date, during:date, after:date – Filters for posts before, during or after the selected date. Dates are written in the format YYYY-MM-DD, so for example posts after 1st June 2023 would be after:2023-06-01
Make sure there’s no space between the : and the other words when using these operators. For example, to search for posts with the word “elephant” that are in English, you would search for elephant language:en
Wait, what’s an “operator”?
It’s a special phrase you include in your search that makes the search behave in a special way. The list above describes all of the ones available in Mastodon.
Can I use several operators in the same search?
Yes, just include several operators along with the keyword or hashtag you’re searching for.
Can I use negative operators to exclude certain kinds of posts?
Yes. Just add a minus sign before the term, for example to exclude posts with polls from results you would include the operator -has:poll
Can I exclude posts with certain words?
Yes, just include the word in your search with a minus sign in front of it. For example batman -robin would show you posts containing the word “batman” but hide those containing “robin”.
How do I search for stuff I’ve bookmarked or boosted or liked?
Include the operator in:library, this will also search your own posts too.
How do I opt in to my posts being searched by words as well as hashtags?
Yes! Any emoji can be entered in the search box, and will show posts and profiles containing that emoji in the search results.
It’s a bit more complicated with custom emoji though, you may have to strip away the colons :: around the alt text that appears when you add a custom emoji to a post. The alt text without the colons will show you posts and profiles containing that custom emoji.
My server says search options are unavailable, what’s going on?
Advanced search options require the server to be running a special add-on called “Elasticsearch”. If the operators don’t work and/or you can’t search posts by keyword, ask your server’s admin about this. It’s possible they haven’t installed Elasticsearch, perhaps because they lack the resources as it costs extra.
However, hashtag searches should work fine on all servers, even the ones without Elasticsearch.
I thought Mastodon only allowed searches with hashtags?
Before September 2023 Mastodon searches were entirely based around hashtags. Since then Mastodon also allows full text searches where you just type what you want and it searches the entire texts of posts for matches.
HOWEVER… for privacy reasons the full text search system is opt-in, so you can only get search results for people who have opted into their posts being included in full text searches. If you want your posts to be fully searchable you need to opt into this system, click the link to find out how.
On your profile page you can set your display name, picture, banner image and short text (also known as a “biog”) about yourself. You should see an Edit profile or Edit Info button on your profile page which lets you change all these things.
How do I find my profile page?
If you’ve already set a profile image, you should be able to just click on the icon that looks like your profile image to get to your profile. Your profile image is visible on the website and all the apps, usually in one of the corners of the screen.
If you haven’t set a profile image, the icon for your profile will normally be some kind of blank sihouette, depending on what you’re using to access Mastodon.
Fill in your profile’s text
It’s really important to fill in your profile’s text description (also known as a “biog”) if you want people to notice your profile. The first line of the profile text is used in Mastodon’s discovery systems, so it’s a good idea to have this sum up what your account is about.
Upload a profile picture and banner
You can upload or change the profile image and banner for your account on the Edit profile page. However, images aren’t as important as the text, and many blind people do not use profile images at all.
The images can be JPG, PNG or GIF files up to 2 megabytes in size. Pictures will be downscaled to 400×400 pixels, banners will be downscaled to 1500×500 pixels. GIFs and PNGs can be animated, though some people’s settings may prevent the animation playing when they look at your profile.
⚠️ WARNING: Do not use rapidly flashing animations on your profile images. These can be extremely dangerous to people with certain neurological conditions.
Fill in your Mastodon profile’s Extra Fields
On Mastodon, there’s also a special feature called Extra fields which creates a special section of your profile page with clearly labelled website links or any other info you want to highlight about yourself. (Extra Fields were previously known as “Metadata”.)
For example, you could have a label saying “My website” in one box and “https://example.com” in the other box next to this label. Or “My other accounts” and links to your other account addresses on the Fediverse. Or you could have a label “Favourite pizza” next to a pineapple emoji. It’s totally up to you how you use this feature.
Extra fields appear as prominent boxes on the website version of Mastodon, and on the official apps it appears in the About section of your profile. Third party apps will show these in various ways, usually boxes on your profile page.
To edit your profile’s Extra Fields feature through the website:
Click on your profile image to go to your profile page
Click Edit profile, then go to the Extra Fields section of the page
Fill in up to four labels and content. The labels can be text or emoji, the content can be links, text or emoji. If you do put links in, remember to put the https:// at the start so that they are clickable.
Click Save changes
To edit Extra Fields through the official apps:
Click on your profile image to go to your profile page
Click Edit Profile or Edit Info
Scroll down to the About section and click on the + button or Add Row to add a field
You can edit an existing field by tapping on its title or contents to edit them
When you’ve finished, click the Done button at the top
Third party apps may also support editing Extra Fields, and will have various interfaces for doing so.
How to add video, audio, images and even more text to your profile
If you want to greatly expand the introductory material on your profile page, try creating a post with the extra material and pin it to your profile. Pinned posts will always appear at the top of the profile for everyone who browses it, and you can pin up to five posts on a single profile.
Pinned posts are particularly useful if you want to let people know about images, video or audio you have created, as media can be attached to posts.
If you do create an introductory post about yourself you might want to include the hashtag #Introduction, as this is the most widely used tag for new people introducing themselves.
Fediverse accounts only let you log in on one server, because all the servers are independent. The server you joined is your gateway into the wider network, because all the different servers talk to each other to form a single network, despite being separately owned.
If that seems confusing, think of it this way: you can’t sign in on Yahoo Mail with a Gmail account, but you can still send emails between Yahoo Mail and Gmail accounts. The reason this works is because the different email providers talk to each other, despite being separate companies.
But I thought Pixelfed lets people log in with their Mastodon accounts?
Not really. Pixelfed servers have an option on their websites called “Sign in with Mastodon”, but what it actually does is create a new Pixelfed account and automatically copies over settings from your Mastodon account. You still end up with two separate accounts at the end of it (the original Mastodon one and the new Pixelfed one). If you do the same thing again on more Pixelfed servers, you will end up with even more Pixelfed accounts, all with info copied from your Mastodon account.
What if I want to use features that are only available on a different kind of server? For example tracking my reading on BookWyrm?
If you just want to follow people from other types of server, you can do that from your Mastodon account. Go to the profile page of the account you want to follow and click Follow, or if their profile isn’t visible in Mastodon then paste their account addresses into the search box on Mastodon.
If you want to actually use features that aren’t available on Mastodon, such as the book database on BookWyrm, then you’ll need to set up a separate account on a server that has those features. In the example of BookWyrm, you would need to set up an account on a BookWyrm server.
The most reliable way to follow an account on Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse is to follow its account address, also known as its Fediverse address. All Fediverse accounts have a unique address that looks like this:
@ username @ server
Your address is visible on your profile page, just below your profile picture and display name.
Account address on a profile, as seen through the official Mastodon appAccount address on a profile, as seen through the Mastodon web interface
If you want people to follow you on the Fediverse, give them your full account address from your profile. Addresses are by far the most reliable way to find an account’s profile. You can exchange Fediverse addresses with friends in real life the same way you would exchange phone numbers.
Each full account address is unique because only one account has that username on that server.
You can follow an account by copying and pasting its address into the search box on Mastodon (or whatever Fediverse server type you’re using) and then searching for it. The account associated with that address will appear in the search results, and clicking on it will take you to the account’s profile page. You can then follow it by clicking the Follow button.
Why do Fediverse addresses look like email addresses?
Fediverse addresses look like email addresses because they use a similar structure for federating their networks together. Each server is independent and the servers talk to each other, so the address includes both the server’s name and the user’s name to make sure messages get to the correct account. Because only one person can register a particular username on a particular server, an account’s full address is always a unique combination.
Why does it usually show just the first part of my address in posts? Why does it sometimes show the full addresses?
In order to make the posts easier to read, Mastodon and many other Fedi platforms abbreviate addresses to just show the first part of the address when you’re @-ing people within a post. However, if there are two addresses with the same username being discussed in the same post, then Mastodon will show the entire addresses to avoid confusion.
Think of it like names and full names in real life: in a conversation you would probably just use part of someone’s name (“Have you met John?”), but if there were two identical names in the same conversation you might say both names in full to distinguish them (“Have you met John Smith and John McDonald?”).
Why can’t I just find accounts by searching?
You can find accounts by searching, however if an account is very new or if no one on your server has ever interacted with it, it may not be visible in search results yet. This is why account addresses are so useful, because they force your server to notice that account straight away.
Does registering a username on one server reserve that username on all other servers?
No. Fediverse account addresses are structured like email addresses: your address is unique because it’s a particular combination of username and server that no one else has.
Someone else can register the same username on a different server, but then their address will be different because the server part will be different. This prevents the accounts being mixed up by the network.
To avoid confusion, Mastodon shows the full addresses if two accounts with the same username are mentioned in the same post.
(This is how email works too: the person with the email example@gmail.com may not be the same person as the one with example@yahoo.com, even though the username part is the same.)
You can use Mastodon entirely through your server’s website if you prefer. This works especially well on computers, but the mobile web interface is good too and appears automatically on small screens. To log in through the web:
Go to your server’s website
Click the Sign in button
Log in with the same email and password you use to sign in on the app
What’s my server’s website address?
It’s usually the same as the name of your server. For example, if you joined Mastodon through the server kind.social you would log in through the website kind.social ⧉.
Why would I want to use my server’s website instead of a mobile app?
Mastodon’s official website interface is the reference platform for Mastodon’s development, and it usually receives the latest features first. Most features are eventually adopted by apps too, but they tend to be released first for the website interface.
Also, some features on the website are still not on any apps, and some account settings can only be adjusted from the website interface.
Can I install Mastodon as a web app on my home screen?
How does the website interface cope with small or large screens?
It adjusts its layout to cope with whatever your current screen size is, and includes layouts specifically for computers, phones and tablets.
Can I see the tablet and phone interfaces on a computer?
If you’re on a computer and want to see what the phone and tablet interfaces are like, try making your web browser’s window narrower. When it’s medium width it will show you the tablet interface, and when it’s narrow width it will show you the phone interface.
Can I log in from other servers’ websites?
No, you can only log in from your own server’s website. Each server on Mastodon and the Fediverse is independent and has its own website for that server’s members.
It’s exactly the same situation as with email: there is no central email website, you can only log into email through specific email providers such as Yahoo Mail, Gmail etc.
I have a web link to a post on another mastodon server. How do I interact with it on my server if I can’t log in on other servers?
Copy and paste the web link into the search box on your own server. This will make the post appear within your own server and you will be able to interact with it.
My password doesn’t work! I can’t remember my password! I can’t log in, help!
If you are unable to log in through your server’s website, try doing these steps in this order:
Make sure you are logging in on the correct website. You have to log in through your own server’s site, which will usually be the same as the server’s name. If you don’t know your server’s name, it’s in the last part of your account address.
Make sure you are typing the password correctly. Passwords are case sensitive, so you need to make sure each letter’s case is correct.
Underneath the login form there will be a link that says something like “Forgotten password?” or “Having trouble logging in?”. Click this link, then enter your email address and it will send you an email with a reset link in it. If the email hasn’t arrived after a few minutes, check your spam folder in case it’s there,
If you’re still having trouble logging in on Mastodon, go to your server’s website and click on the Learn more link (if you’re on the desktop website) or ⋯ (if you’re on the mobile website). This will take you to your server’s info page. Your server admin’s public email address will be shown in the info page’s section marked “CONTACT:”, you can send them an email to ask for help with logging in even if you get locked out.
By the way, if you have a computer using Mastodon through the website is perhaps the best way to experience it. Fans of the multicolumn Tweetdeck may also want to try the advanced web interface.
Many people start on Mastodon through the official app, which is simply called “Mastodon” and available on the Apple App Store, Google Play and F-Droid. However, you don’t need to do this! In fact, you will probably enjoy Mastodon a lot more if you use a third party app or your server’s website.
Also important to note that you don’t need to sign up via apps. Sign-ups work better when done through server websites, and you can use your account on any apps you want. You can even use several different apps at once with the same account if you want to compare them.
Here are more details about all the different ways of accessing Mastodon with your Mastodon account:
Official Mastodon apps
Mastodon was originally launched in 2016 and all of its apps were third party. The official apps (for Android and iPhone/iPad) were only introduced in 2022 as new people were expecting there to be an official app. However, it was intended just as a beginner’s app and was not meant to replace the third party apps.
Third party apps tend to have more and better features than the official app, and most people who try them prefer them. Because Mastodon uses open technical standards, all apps have equal access to all of Mastodon’s features. The official app has no special advantages or privileges compared to third party apps.
The Mastodon web interface is excellent and generally gets the latest features first. It can be used on computer, tablet or phone, and automatically changes to a mobile layout when used on a small screen.
Third party web interfaces
There are also third party web interfaces you can use instead of your server’s official website. You can log in using the same details as you do on your server’s website, but it will work through a different interface.
One of the most popular third party web interfaces is called Elk, however it is still having a lot of bugs ironed out. You can try it at elk.zone ⧉ and if you’re a techy person you can find out more at Elk’s Github page ⧉.
What happens to my posts and messages and followers if I switch to a third party app or use the website?
All your Mastodon posts, followers, messages etc are stored on your server, and not on any app.
Your account will be exactly the same whether you’re using the website, the official app or a third party app, as these are all just different methods of accessing the same account on the same server.
What about safety? How safe are third party apps compared to official apps?
Obviously it’s a bad idea to ever install random unknown apps from sources you don’t trust. However, the apps listed on this page are all well-established and recommended on the official Mastodon website’s apps page ⧉ (scroll down past the official apps section).
Also, most of the apps listed are open source so their workings are visible to anyone in the outside world. Any shenanigans in what a widely-used open source app does would be noticed fairly soon by outside observers.
How do apps handle my account password? Do the apps find out what my password is?
The security of your Mastodon account works like this:
The sign-in process on all apps (including official, third party and web apps) happens through your server’s website, which the app opens in a built-in web browser window. That’s why the sign-in page on apps looks like your server’s website, because it is your server’s website.
None of the apps listed on this page ever find out your password, all they know is that your server confirmed the password is correct and the server gave the app a special access token so it could work with your account. (Tokens are just a special code that lets apps and servers talk to each other.) That’s why the sign-in process always includes asking you about permissions, it is your server asking if you want to give that app an access token.
If you don’t want an app to work with your account any more, you can cancel its access token by logging in on your server’s website and going to Preferences > Account > Authorised Apps, then click the Revoke button for the app you want to remove permission from. Revoking will stop that app having any access to your account. (On the mobile website, you may need to click the cog icon ⚙️ and then ☰ in the top right corner to get to the Account section.)
You can make your account even more secure by enabling two-factor authentication, an extra layer of security which means even if someone found out your password they would still be unable to log into your account.
Can I use more than one app at the same time?
Yes, you can use the same account on many different apps simultaneously if you want to. You can also be logged into your server’s website or web app.
Can I use more than one account on the same app?
Yes, you can use multiple accounts on the same app, the apps all let you be logged in with several accounts and switch between them when posting etc.
The reason the Fediverse exists is to be spread out on lots of separate servers, it means no one person or company controls the network and if anyone does something bad they can be blocked by others.
By keeping the network spread out, if means if you are unhappy with how your server is run you can move elsewhere, or even start your own, and there are many other benefits for users. Click here for more about why the Fediverse is spread out on many servers. If everyone joins a single massive server like mastodon.social, the advantages of the Fediverse disappear.
I thought the largest server meant it was the best server?
No, this isn’t true:
The largest servers are the easiest for nasty billionaires to buy out, which puts the network as a whole at risk. By staying spread out on many servers, you are helping to protect the network from anyone taking it over.
The largest servers tend to have the worst staff-to-member ratio, which means the moderation will be worse. Also, if you have a technical problem it will be a lot harder to get hold of anyone who can fix it.
You don’t need to be on the largest server to get lots of follows and followers. The fedi.tips account ⧉ has over 200,000 followers but is on a single user server.
The experience of following an account is identical whether you’re on the same server or not. You don’t need to be on the same server as people you follow.
Smaller servers usually have a friendlier community atmosphere on their Local timelines, while the Local timeline on large servers is an unreadable firehose.
Why is mastodon.social in particular not a good server to join? What does “too big to defederate” mean?
There are four main problems with mastodon.social:
Mastodon.social is by far the largest Mastodon server now. As it becomes an ever-larger percentage of the overall network, the more it puts the Fediverse in danger of being bought out. It’s not a question of absolute numbers but of percentages: if most of the network is on one server, then that server effectively controls the overall network.
There’s a second problem: mastodon.social’s moderation has suffered, as the growth means it has fewer moderators per person. It is getting harder for mastodon.social’s moderators to keep tabs on what happens.
Added to this is a third danger: mastodon.social is so much larger than other servers, that other servers have become afraid of defederating it. Normally if a server’s moderation or behaviour goes downhill, other servers can block it, and the more a server is blocked the more isolated it becomes. This gives all servers an incentive to be well moderated. But if one server is far larger than the others, it makes it much harder to defederate because it would mean cutting users off from a massive chunk of the network. The more of the network is on a single server, the harder it becomes to block it, and the worse moderation becomes across the entire network.
The fourth issue with mastodon.social is who owns it: Mastodon gGmbH, the organisation owned by the lead developer of the software that all Mastodon servers run on. This organisation also owns the official Mastodon apps and the official Mastodon website, and owns the trademark for the word “Mastodon” in relation to social networks. This is a massive concentration of power in a single organisation owned by a single person.
Putting these together creates a nightmare scenario for the Fediverse: a server that is too big to block, with moderation going downhill, which controls the official apps and trademarks and website, and which is now using these official channels to grow their own server at the expense of other servers. In short, mastodon.social is helping to centralise a network which was set up to be decentralised.
How does mastodon.social control the official Mastodon apps and official Mastodon website?
Mastodon.social is owned by Mastodon gGmbH, the organisation owned by the lead developer of the software which runs on Mastodon servers. They also make the official mobile apps, and own the trademark of the word “Mastodon” in relation to social networks. There is a tremendous amount of power concentrated in one place here, and joining mastodon.social makes the situation even worse.
I’m already on mastodon.social. How do I move my account elsewhere? Can I keep my followers and follows? Can I move back if I change my mind?
If you want to move your account to another server, click here to see the account transfer guide. You can keep your followers and follows, they will be moved automatically as long as you follow all the steps. You can move back to the old account if you change your mind.
Can someone steal my username if I move off mastodon.social?
No. Once an account has been registered, no one else can ever register that username on that server. Even if an account is deleted, the server keeps a permanent list of usernames to prevent impersonations and will refuse signups with those usernames.
If I move off mastodon.social, will people know where to find my new account?
Yes, when you move servers your old account will redirect people to your new account. You can also manually add a message to your old account profile telling people about your new account.
But the Mastodon app said to join mastodon.social! Why would it do this if there was anything wrong with it?
The official Mastodon apps and official Mastodon website are owned by the same organisation as mastodon.social. This organisation is owned by one person, the lead developer of the software which runs on all Mastodon servers.
Ths organisation has highly irresponsibly started driving people to sign up on mastodon.social by default, which goes against everything Mastodon stood for when it was founded. It’s unclear why they are doing this now when they opposed it before.
Isn’t it just easier for non-technical people to join a single server? Isn’t that why the official apps suggest joining mastodon.social?
It makes sense to choose a server and say to unsure non-technical people “just sign up on this server”. That does make sign-ups easier.
However, it doesn’t make sense to tell new users to sign up on the largest server. Promoting the largest server doesn’t make it any easier to sign up, but it does put the network itself in danger. Also, centralising the network like this undermines the entire point of signing up on a decentralised network in the first place.
But I thought mastodon.social is the default server? Doesn’t it have some special status in the network?
No, mastodon.social is not special in any way. All servers are totally independent, and do not depend on mastodon.social in any technical sense.
Mastodon.social became a very big server mainly because it was the first Mastodon server and is owned by the Mastodon software’s lead developer. It has no technical advantages or privileges over any other server. It would be like expecting the oldest telephone company to be better than the others because ir was first.
But even if everyone joined mastodon.social, it would still be decentralised? People could still join other servers?
There is nothing technically requiring Fediverse servers to federate. There is an option in Mastodon’s software called “isolated mode” where all federation is shut off and the server runs as a single centralised social network. It’s rarely used, but the technical option exists. If the people running mastodon.social wanted to stop federating with others, they could do so.
But even if the technical option didn’t exist, decentralisation is only meaningful on a network when the network is spread out. If most of a server’s interactions are with people on other servers, the server’s admin will be forced to consider the opinions and needs of other servers and rely on their existence. But if most of a server’s interactions are within that server, the server’s admin will no longer need to think about other servers and will no longer depend on their existence. The network will effectively be centralised.
There is also a precedent for decentralised networks becoming centralised: Facebook’s messenger system used to be part of a wider open messaging standard called XMPP, which allowed Facebook members to message with people outside Facebook. Then one day Facebook just switched off federation ⧉, and its members could only message with each other while those outside Facebook were cut off from Facebook members. If the XMPP network had been more spread out, it would have been much more difficult for Facebook to switch off federation.
What about the other non-Mastodon platforms on the Fediverse?
At the moment, Mastodon’s userbase is larger than all the other Fediverse platforms put together several times over.
It would be fantastic if other Fediverse server types took up a larger percentage of the Fediverse, and an ideal situation would be if no one platform had a majority. But as things stand, Mastodon servers have by far the largest percentage of the Fediverse’s total userbase.
I’m on a very new small server, but it seems a bit quiet. How do I make it busier?
If your server is quiet, especially if it is new, perhaps it can’t see the rest of the Fediverse yet. As more people sign up on your server, and as your server’s members follow accounts from other servers, it will gradually start noticing more of the Fediverse and start to feel busier.
However, if you want to speed up this process of discovering the rest of the Fediverse, there are ways of doing this:
Join some Fediverse groups. Groups are available on a wide range of topics, and actively send all their posts to everyone that follows them, regardless of the size of their server.
Ask your server admin if they would consider using relay servers. This will quickly give a server a much wider view of the Fediverse, and are especially useful if they’re topic-specific relays.
Fediverse servers do sometimes decide to close for a variety of reasons. However, all of the servers listed at JoinMastodon.org ⧉ and Fedi.Garden ⧉ have promised to give at least three months notice if they are going to close down. This gives the server’s members lots of time to transfer their accounts to other servers. The transfer process lets people keep their followers, follows, blocks etc.
If you have any links to your account outside the Fediverse, remember to update them to your new account
How do I avoid being on a server that closes down suddenly?
Your best option is to choose a server listed on Fedi.Garden ⧉ or JoinMastodon.org ⧉ as all the listed servers have promised to give three months warning if they intend to shut down.
Do servers shut down because they’re small?
No.
Any online service of any size may shut down one day, even really huge services used by hundreds of millions of people ⧉, and those that keep going may not be quite the same ⧉. If an online service is centralised, which almost all commercial services are, then when it closes you lose your account and everything in it, no matter how huge and immortal the service might seem.
Mastodon and the Fediverse aren’t centralised. They are federated, which means you aren’t trapped if a server decides to shut down. If a server on a federated network says it is going to close, you can transfer your account to another server and keep your account alive. You can even set up your own server if you want to.
What if a server goes down just temporarily? What happens to posts or messages that are being sent to it while it is down?
If a server breaks down temporarily and other servers can’t get through to it, the other servers will wait a while and try to communicate with it again when some time has passed. When the server goes back online, it will start to automatically catch up on the posts and messages it has missed.
Messages and posts do not get lost because a server goes down, they just go in a queue for resending later.
(This is the same process used by email servers, they will also wait and retry later if an email doesn’t get through straight away.)
If you’re totally new to Mastodon and the Fediverse, the safest and easiest way to join is probably to go to JoinMastodon.org ⧉ or Fedi.Garden ⧉ and pick one of the listed servers. After you’ve signed up, you can use your account on the server’s website, or use the same account on an app if you prefer, or use both web and app.
Many of the servers are themed or intended for particular kinds of people, but many of them are just general. If you can’t make up your mind, just pick one of the general servers from those lists.
Is there a more direct, in-depth way to find out about a server?
If you know the server you want info about, go to its website and click on the Learn more or ⋯ links, which will take you to that server’s About page. A server’s website address is usually the same as its name, so for example the server laserdisc.party would be at the web address laserdisc.party ⧉
The About page will contain general information about the server, as well as a list of the server’s rules and a link to the server administrator’s page (along with their public email address). It may also show a list of other servers that the server has blocked, which can be a useful indicator of the server’s priorities and how responsibly it is run.
What are the differences between servers?
Each server is totally independent: it is owned by the person or group who maintains it, it makes its own rules of acceptable behaviour and is responsible for moderation, it chooses which other servers it blocks, and all these things together give it a general vibe or atmosphere. The sense of community is usually much stronger and friendlier on medium and smaller servers.
Because Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse is built on open technical standards, servers are free to offer features that aren’t available on standard Mastodon. For example, some servers allow you to write longer posts.
What’s to stop a server shutting down?
Any kind of internet site can disappear ⧉, but the Fediverse reduces this risk by letting you move your account to another server if the one you’re on is closing.
Another way of mitigating the risks of shutdowns is to join a server that has been around for a long time. The Fedi.Garden website has a section which lists recommended servers sorted by the year they were founded ⧉. You can also check a server’s age by clicking on the administrator’s profile link on its About page. Because the admin is usually the one who founded the server, their joining date on their profile page usually tells you the server’s age too.
Do I need to join more than one server?
No. You don’t need to join more than one server, because the servers talk to each other seamlessly. If your friend is on another server you can still follow each other, and being on different servers doesn’t affect that at all. (It’s similar to friends being on different phone providers, they can still call each other.)
Medium and small servers also tend to have much better moderation. Their ratio of staff to users is much higher than on large servers, so if there are any problems it’s much easier to reach someone who can help.
Can I move my account if I change my mind about which server to join?
Yes! You can always transfer your account to a different server if you want to be somewhere else instead. The transfer process lets you keep your followers and follows, plus bookmarks, blocks, mutes and lists. Posts from the old account remain on your old server, but when people click on the profile name above old posts they will be redirected to your new account’s profile page.
How do I find out how long a server has been going?
Finding out how long a server has been going can be useful, because long-running servers tend to be more stable as they have a proven track record.
If you visit the server’s About page by clicking Learn more or ⋯, there will be a section marked “Administered by”. This will link to the admin’s account profile, and this will show when they joined. The admin’s joining date is usually the same as the time the server was created.
Yes, apart from fedi.tips there are lots of other places you can also get help:
If you prefer physical books, there’s “Mastodon For Dummies” by Chris Minnick and Mike McCallister (ISBN: 978-1-394-19336-3), available from bookshops and libraries. It’s also available as an e-book from services like Kobo or Kindle, and as an audiobook from all major audiobook platforms.
There’s an excellent friendly and simple (but surprisingly detailed) video called “The Crafter’s Guide to the Fediverse” ⧉. It’s made by a crafting channel but it also works as a general intro to Mastodon and the Fediverse for anyone.
Well, sort of. There’s no central authority on the Fediverse to choose an official logo, but many community members published their own suggestions and one of them has become very widely used. This is probably the nearest the Fediverse will ever get to an official logo.
The creator of the logo released it into the Public Domain, so anyone can use it for any purpose. It’s effectively the flag of the Fediverse, and used to represent it in discussions, videos, apps and lots of other contexts.
As well as Mastodon ⧉, there are lots of other server types on the Fediverse, for example:
BookWyrm ⧉ – A social reading platform, an alternative to Amazon’s GoodReads
Friendica ⧉ – A general social network with no character limits, sort of like Facebook used to be on its older interface
Funkwhale ⧉ – Music and podcast storage and sharing
Mobilizon ⧉ – Event organisation, the Fedi’s alternative to Facebook Events
OwnCast ⧉ – Video livestreaming with a chat window at the side, very much in the style of Twitch
PeerTube ⧉ – YouTube-style video sharing site which uses P2P technology to allow even small servers to have videos go viral, as the more people view a video the more bandwidth it gets
PixelFed ⧉ – Photo sharing site, similar in style to Instagram and Tumblr
Fediverse servers connect to each other using traditional sustainable methods that email and websites have used for decades.
I thought “decentralised” meant blockchain/web3/cryptocurrency?
No.
The so-called “web3” is just marketing crap that con artists have used to promote blockchain-based get-rich-quick schemes ⧉. Part of the deceptive marketing around web3 scams includes trying to steal the term “decentralised”, but in reality blockchain and cryptocurrency schemes are just about trying to make money through dodgy investments, they don’t care about their users.
Honest, proven, sustainable decentralised networks are nothing to do with blockchain/web3/cryptocurrency.
So, what is a true decentralised social network?
True decentralised networks are where many independent service providers talk to each other in a process known as “federation”, so that even people on totally different providers can still communicate. The Fediverse takes its name from this: it’s a Federated Universe of independent social network servers.
Federated networks have been around for centuries, and all of us have used them all our lives. The entire world is built around federated communications networks.
The postal service is federated, different post offices around the world exchange letters and parcels. You don’t need to use the German post office to send a letter to Germany, you just use your local postal service and they pass it on to their German equivalent. The traditional telephone network is federated, and so is email. That’s why you can make a call or send an email to someone else even if you’re using a completely different provider, because the providers on a federated network talk to each other.
Federated networks have been the default for human communications from the earliest days, since before computers or the internet even existed. It’s this sensible, sustainable, common sense tradition that the Fediverse is trying to bring to the modern social media world.
If a server does something awful like encouraging spam or allowing abuse or whatever, admins of other servers can block it, which is also known as “defederation”. The worse a server behaves, the more other server admins will block it, and the very worst-behaved servers will find themselves almost completely isolated from the network.
For example, in 2019 a notorious neo-Nazi group attempted to join the Fediverse, but so many other servers pre-emptively blocked them that the group gave up and abandoned its plans to federate. There was even one third party app which rickrolled anyone who attempted to use it to log onto the neo-Nazi server.
It makes it very difficult for anyone to buy the Fediverse out. There is no central server, so there’s no single thing anyone could purchase in order to take over the network. Twitter-Musk scenarios aren’t possible on a network that stays spread out on many servers.
It promotes higher quality moderation. Smaller servers tend to have higher quality moderation, because they have a much larger staff-to-member ratio. On massive servers, the number of staff per user is very low and the moderation quality tends to be much poorer.
It means each server can make its own rules, so if there are any disagreements people can move to a different server with different rules, or even start their own server with rules they write themselves.
Servers that find themselves in extreme disagreements over acceptable behaviour can disconnect from each other without disconnecting from the rest of the network.
If one server goes down or has technical problems, other servers keep working fine. Problems on one server don’t bring down the whole network.
Servers don’t all have to use the same software. This diversity means if one kind of software doesn’t work properly, it doesn’t affect the whole network, and servers can switch to other software if they want. The diversity also allows servers to specialise in particular kinds of content for users who just want particular features, for example PeerTube specialises in video publishing, BookWyrm in book reviews etc.
It’s now much cheaper and easier than most people realise, it starts from about 5 to 10 euros or dollars per month for a small server.
There are three main ways to start your own server on Mastodon and the Fediverse, depending on your technical skill level:
If you’re non-technical, you can use a managed hosting provider. The hosting company does all the technical stuff for you behind the scenes in return for a monthly fee, but the server belongs to you and you have total control over it through the web interface. You can find out more about managed hosting on my website Grow Your Own Services ⧉.
If you’re moderately technical, you might want to use Yunohost ⧉ which lets you install and manage a wide range of online services (including Fediverse servers) through a graphical interface. This option does require you to know how to install a server OS though.
If you’re very technical, all Fediverse platforms (including Mastodon) have manual installation instructions in their documentation which you can use.
Once your server is set up, you can follow people on other servers and they can follow you.
Should I set up my own server?
It’s much easier to join someone else’s server, but it’s really important that creating your own server is there as an option. Here’s an article on my other site about why someone might want to run their own server ⧉.
I’m interested, but I don’t know anything about this topic. Is there anywhere I can get advice?
Yes! I run a website at GrowYourOwn.Services ⧉ which is aimed at non-technical people who are interested in making their own online sites and services. This includes Mastodon and other kinds of Fediverse servers, and there’s an in-depth step-by-step guide to making your own Mastodon server ⧉. The site doesn’t have any connection to the providers mentioned, so it can give advice freely on what is possible.
There are also guides for Fediverse admins on Fedi.Tips, just go to the front page and scroll to the section marked Running your own server on Mastodon and the Fediverse at the bottom of the screen.
Do I need to make a public server that anyone can sign up on?
No. In fact it’s probably a bad idea to start out with a public server, as they can bring a very complicated set of responsibilities and moderation workload. It’s much easier to start out with a personal server where you’re the only member. There is more about this in the step-by-step guide ⧉.
I set up my own server but it’s hard to pull content in! What can I do?
Because the Fediverse is a network of totally independent servers, there is no central set of rules for them. Each server creates its own set of rules which its members must obey. Usually the owner of a server sets the rules for that server, although some servers may consult their members about what should be allowed.
How do I find out what the rules are on my server?
Go to your server’s website, you don’t need to log in.
If you’re on a computer, click the “Learn more” link. If you’re on a phone, click the ⋯ icon.
You will be taken to that server’s info page, scroll down the page until you get to a section marked Server Rules and click this to open it. It’s worth reading the rules before joining a server, they’re usually relatively short and written in clear plain language.
What kind of rules are typical on servers?
Most servers will have rules against bigotry, abuse, threats etc, but it is totally up to a server’s owner to decide. That’s why it’s important to check a server’s rules before you sign up or transfer an account, as they are not all the same and it’s best to know the kind of place you are joining.
How are the rules enforced? What happens if an offender is on another server?
If the rule-breaker’s account is on an admin’s server, the admin can issue a warning, limit the account, suspend the account or even delete the account.
If the rule-breaker is on another server, admins can limit or totally block remote accounts from communicating with their server.
If a server is consistently full of problematic accounts and refuses to do anything about them, admins can defederate badly-run servers. Really badly run servers tend to end up isolated, because so many other servers defederate them.
What if I disagree with a rule? What if a rule is unclear?
You can ask the owner(s) of your server if you have any comments or questions about the server’s rules. Bear in mind though that the owners have the last word on what is allowed.
Is it possible to run a server jointly, owned by its members?
Yes, some servers are owned and run jointly by co-operatives, where the members vote on what should happen and what the rules should be. Real world ownership structures such as co-ops can be applied to servers too.
No single person or company or organisation owns the Fediverse or Mastodon. Its ownership is spread throughout the thousands of independent servers that make up the network.
No one can buy out the Fediverse or Mastodon because there is no single thing that could be bought, it would be like trying to buy out the global phone network. The Fedi is made up of thousands of independently owned and run servers, which makes it extremely difficult or impossible for anyone to purchase it.
Most Fedi servers belong to unpaid volunteers, or non-profit community groups and co-ops. The running costs are covered by the server owners themselves and donations from their users. There are no investors, no venture capital firms, no ads, no trackers.
Companies can start their own Fedi server if they want to, anyone can, but all they would control is their own server. They would have no control over the thousands of other servers out there.
The Fediverse is built on free and open source software, made by many independent groups, and the software copyrights are licensed in such a way that no company or organisation could ever take control of them.
I thought Mastodon belonged to some guy called Gargron or Eugen or something?
The software which runs on most Mastodon servers is developed by a non-profit software organisation in Germany called Mastodon gGmbH, which is run by Eugen Rochko (also known as “Gargron”). The non-profit publishes this software under a free open source licence so anyone can use it, distribute it or modify it. Many of the contributions made to the software are from people outside the non-profit, so this open licence is of benefit to everyone.
Rochko’s non-profit also runs two Mastodon servers (mastodon.social and mastodon.online) and the JoinMastodon.org promotional website, but they do not own or have any control over any other servers. Also, many Fediverse servers run on totally different kinds of software which aren’t made by Rochko’s non-profit.
What about the apps? Who owns them?
The “official” apps for Mastodon are made by Rochko’s non-profit and are aimed at new users. However, the third party Mastodon apps have been around a lot longer than the official ones, and tend to be better designed with more features. You can use your Mastodon account (and many non-Mastodon Fediverse accounts) with any of these apps, you don’t have to use the official ones.
The “official” Mastodon apps have no technical advantages over third party apps, they all have equal access to Mastodon’s features.
I thought apps and social networks were the same thing?
In recent years companies like Meta/Facebook and Twitter have attempted to drive people onto their official apps in order to control their experience more tightly. This has happened to such an extent that many people now refer to social networks as “apps”.
There used to be many third party Facebook and Twitter apps you could use, but the corporations who own Facebook and Twitter didn’t like this lack of control so they gradually started to block all other apps from their services except their own. Because Facebook and Twitter are built on closed standards and based on single servers, there was nothing the third party app makers could do about it.
Mastodon and the Fediverse are different, they are built entirely on open standards and spread across thousands of independent servers. That means no one can force you to use a particular app, you can choose from many different apps and they will all work with your account. Any company or programmer can make a new Mastodon/Fediverse app if they want to, and there are no restrictions on the features they can provide.
The servers on the Fediverse talk to each other, which means that even people on different servers can follow each other and communicate. Think of it like your telephone: you only need one phone with one SIM card to call anyone in the world.
To put it another way:
You don’t need phones for every phone network, because the world’s phone networks talk to each other.
You don’t need email accounts on every email provider, because the world’s email providers talk to each other.
You don’t need an account for every Fediverse server, because the world’s Fediverse servers talk to each other.
The reason these are all true is because phones, email and the Fediverse all operate on similarly structured federated networks.
(If your account is new and you don’t have any followers yet, don’t bother doing all this! Just sign up on the server you want and delete your old account. These instructions are for people who have followers and want to keep them.)
You can migrate your Mastodon account to another server if you want. Moving lets you keep your followers, follows, bookmarks, lists, mutes, block and domain blocks.
The instructions below might seem a bit complicated as they combine several different procedures together, but you only have to do these things once per migration.
You should use the websites of your old and new servers, as these contain all the features needed to do a transfer. (You can’t do a transfer via the apps at the moment.)
Why would I want to transfer my account?
There are many different reasons why people might transfer their account to a different server. The most common reasons are:
Moving to a server with better moderation
Moving to a server that is technically more reliable
Moving to a server where the community and/or rules fit your needs better
Wanting to use extra features on a different server such as larger character limits, rich text, local-only post visibilities etc.
Having to leave a server because it is closing down (this is why well-run servers promise to give several months warning if they ever close down, so people have time to transfer their accounts elsewhere)
Do not use the really long automated non-curated server directories, as the automated directories tend to include unreliable servers too.
Before you do the transfer, make a note of your followed hashtags
Followed hashtags aren’t currently transferred, so if you want to keep them you’ll need to make a note of your existing hashtag follows before the transfer, then follow them manually on the new account after the transfer. To see your current followed hashtags, go to your profile, click on ︙ and then Followed hashtags.
How to transfer your account to the new server
This is a step-by-step guide to transferring your account from one Mastodon server to another. It’s a bit long because it combines several different guides into one list, but it takes care of everything in one go.
If you just want to transfer your followers (people who follow you) and you don’t care about transferring anything else, you can skip steps 1-3 and go straight to step 4.
Create a new account on the server you want to move to, but DO NOT delete the old account.
On your OLD account, go to your old server’s website and log in. Click on Preferences, then Import And Export, then Data Export and download all the “CSV” files one file at a time by clicking on the CSV icons. However, DO NOT press the archive request button! Archive request has got nothing to do with transfers. (You of course may want to separately request an archive just so you have a personal copy of an account’s contents. This is especially relevant if your old server is closing down.) Also note that there is no CSV for followers, as they are handled by a seprate process explained in steps 4 to 6 below.
On your NEW account, go to your new server’s website and log in. Click on Preferences, then Import And Export, then Import and upload the CSV files one at a time (the files which you just downloaded in the previous step). When you’re doing the uploading, select the file type for each CSV file from the drop-down menu before you upload it, for example select “Bookmarks” if you’re uploading the bookmarks file.
Log into your NEW account on the new server’s website, go to Preferences > Account > Moving From A Different Account at the bottom of the screen, click on Create an account alias and follow the instructions. (When it asks you to write your old account’s handle, it needs to include the @ at the start as well as the @ in the middle.)
After you’ve finished the previous step, wait at least five minutes. The previous step can take a while for the server to actually carry out, and it’s important that it happens before you continue. While you’re waiting, you might want to optionally change your OLD account’s name to say “(YOUR OLD ACCOUNT NAME HERE) has moved” and change your OLD profile text to tell people your new account address. You don’t technically have to do this, but it helps make extra-sure that everyone can see you’ve moved.
When you’ve finished waiting, log into your OLD account on the old server’s website, go to Preferences > Account > Move To A Different Account (also at the bottom of the screen), click on Configure it here and follow the instructions. This will start transferring your followers to the new account. The accounts won’t transfer all in one go, they will come across in waves depending on how busy their own servers are. Some of your followers will automatically follow your new account straight away, while others may take hours (or in extreme cases even days!).
Even after the transfer, DO NOT delete your old account. It’s best to leave it where it is, because it will redirect people to your new account and leave your old posts intact. Your old posts will redirect people to your new account as long as you don’t delete the old account.
Make sure you do all these steps in the correct order. If you miss stuff out or do things in the wrong order, the transfer may fail or be incomplete.
After doing all these steps, your old account will redirect to the new one, and your followers, follows, bookmarks, mutes and blocks will transfer automatically. There may be a delay on some items transferring, do not worry if this happens.
This seems way too complicated, can I skip some steps?
If you only want to move your followers (people who follow you) and don’t care about transferring anything else, skip steps 1 to 3 and go straight to step 4.
What happens to my old profile after the move?
After you confirm the move in step 6 above, your old account profile will automatically turn black and white, people will not be able to follow it, and there will be a notice on top of it telling people that you have moved your account to a new address, along with a link to your new account’s profile.
However, not every Fediverse app shows this automatic notice, and it may be a good idea to also add a manually-created note of the new account address. See step 5 of the procedure for more info on how to do this.
How long does it take for all my followers to transfer over?
Most people on your follower list should transfer over in a few hours, but for some of your followers it may take days or weeks to automatically follow your new account. There’s nothing you can do to speed this up, because it depends on how busy their server is and how many tasks it has to do before it gets to your follower’s update. Busier servers may have longer processing queues and take longer to handle follower transfers.
However, your followers can skip this queue by manually following your new account. It won’t cause any problems if they do this. You can encourage them to follow your new account manually if you prefer.
I did the transfer but there are still some followers on my old account. How do I bring them over to the new account?
If there are still followers on your old account after 30 days, you can do the procedure below to bring the remaining followers over to the new account. This won’t affect followers who have already been transferred, they will remain on your new account whatever happens.
To transfer followers that are still on your old account:
Log into your OLD server’s website or web app, this should take you straight to the old account’s settings page (if it doesn’t, try logging out and then logging in again, and do this on a desktop computer or tablet in horizontal mode rather than a phone)
Scroll down to the section marked Move to a different account and click the Configure it here link
Click Cancel redirect at the top of the screen
Scroll down to the Move to a different account section and enter your NEW account’s account address and your OLD account’s password
Click the Move Followers button
Your remaining followers should then start transferring over to your new account. Just like the first time, this second attempt may take days to finish. If there are still some followers on the old account after another 30 days, you can do it a third time etc.
The reason for the 30 day “cooldown” period is to give the first transfer time to work, as some servers do take days or weeks to get round to processing follower transfer requests.
Note that a small proportion of your followers may be on broken servers which aren’t processing transfer requests. There’s nothing you can do to transfer such followers, but that kind of situation is rare.
Why don’t the followers all transfer on the first go? And why do some followers never transfer even after repeating the process several times?
There are lots of reason why a follower might not immediately transfer to your new account when you start the transfer process:
They are already following your new account, and the transfer process hasn’t removed their follow from the old account.
Their server is down temporarily, the transfer should succeed automatically later.
Their server is unusually busy and isn’t currently handling automatic transfer requests.
Their server is down permanently. This means they can never be transferred. You can check if a follower’s server is down by visiting its original page.
Their server’s settings are incorrect, and this is messing up the transfer process.
Their account is deleted, but for some reason it’s still visible from your server.
Their account is on a server which uses software that isn’t compatible with the automatic transfer process. You will have to ask them to transfer their follow manually.
Your new account’s server has defederated the server of the old account’s follower, and this is preventing the transfer.
It’s worth trying to do the process again after 30 days because some of your followers on the old server will be ones that just had temporary barriers (such as a temporary fault on their server). But don’t worry too much if some followers remain stubbornly on the old account, because they are probably either following your new account already or their accounts no longer exist.
What happens to my old posts? Do they transfer over as well?
Your old posts cannot be transferred. However, your old posts will still exist on the old server, as long as you don’t delete your old account. Also, your old posts will redirect people to your new account if people click on the username above the post.
If you absolutely have to delete your old account for some reason, you can do so, but it will mean all your old posts will disappear and people will find it more difficult to find your new account.
If you want to make sure your content is completely under your control forever, you can start your own server for around US$8 a month on a managed hosting service ⧉. Managed hosting means the hosting company does all the technical stuff behind the scenes, so you don’t have to be a techy person to use this option.
Does the new account I’m transferring to have to be empty?
It doesn’t have to be empty. You can transfer your account to any other account, including accounts that already have followers.
Can I transfer my account if one of the servers is blocking the other?
Yes, but it requires a bit of patience.
If one server is blocking another, it prevents accounts being transferred directly between them. However, if you can find a neutral third server which isn’t blocked by either your old or new server, you can transfer your account to the third server temporarily, and then later transfer your account from the third server to the new server you wanted to go to in the first place.
Note that you’ll have to wait for your followers to transfer over to the neutral third server before you can go on to the new server. Think of it like booking a flight: a direct flight to your destination isn’t available, so you have to have an extended stopover on the way.
I keep getting an error message saying “something isn’t quite right yet!” when I try to enter my old account address on the new server.
If you are 100% sure you have entered the address correctly, then the error is possibly due to one of the servers blocking the other. See the tip above this for how to work around this problem.
Why isn’t there a CSV file for followers?
CSV files are easy to copy and upload to multiple different accounts. This makes CSVs unsuitable for transferring followers, as they could be misused to clone followers onto an unlimited number of other accounts.
Can I go back to my old account if I change my mind?
Yes. As long as you don’t delete your old account, and as long as the server it is on is still functioning, you can always go back to your old account and cancel the redirect.
To go back to your old account:
Log into the website or web app of your old server with your old account’s details
This should take you to a settings page with a message at the top saying the account is inactive
Click on the Cancel redirect link in the message at the top
Followers you transferred to the new account will remain on the new account even if you cancel the redirect, but you can transfer them back from the new account to the old account if you want by using the normal transfer process in reverse.
Can I go back to the new account again if I change my mind about going back to the old account?
Yes, you can go back and forth between accounts if you want, and transfer your followers back and forth too.
However, there will be a cooldown period of 30 days between such transfers. Also, if you do this a lot some people may get confused, and you may lose a few followers if they are on servers that aren’t handling transfers properly.
I tried uploading my data and it won’t recognise it! It says “Invalid CSV File”. What’s happening?
It sounds like you’re trying to upload your account archive file, which is not used in account transfers. The layout of the data export page is a bit misleading, transfers only involve the individual CSV links. The archive request button is not used in account transfers. (If you want to find out more about archives, see the guide to Mastodon post archives here.)
Click on the server you want, this will take you to the server’s own website where you can do the actual signing up.
Once you have signed up, you can log in on that server’s website, or if you prefer you can use it through a Mastodon app.
Also remember that if you pick the wrong server, you can always transfer your account to another server (including your follows and followers). It’s not a permanent decision, you can always move elsewhere if you want.
How do I find out more about a server before signing up?
If you click on a server on Fedi.Garden, that will take you to the front page of the server’s website. You can then find out more by clicking the ⋯ icon (on the mobile website) or the About link in the bottom left corner (on the desktop website).
If you’re finding a server via JoinMastodon.org, it will take you straight to a sign-up page. Click the link marked Back at the bottom of the sign-up page to go to the server’s front page, and you can then click ⋯ or About to find out more about it.
Do I need to sign up via the official Mastodon app?
No. Each server is totally independent, you can sign up directly on the server’s website without having anything to do with the app. Once you’re signed up, you can use that account on any Mastodon app you want.
I tried to log in on the official Mastodon app but it didn’t show my server? How do I log in?
To log in on the official Mastodon app with your server:
If you have already created your account on the server’s website, click on Log in at the bottom of the title screen
Type your server’s name in full in the search box. Don’t worry if the automatic suggestions don’t match, just keep typing! When you have finished typing your entire server name in full, it will show it below.
When your server appears below, click on it and then click Continue. This will open a special browser window where you can sign in on your server.
Sign in with your email address and password.
Click Authorize. (This screen is just your server’s way of asking you if it is okay for your app to use your account.)
That’s it, you should now be logged in with your account on the official Mastodon app.
You don’t have to use the official app, most people find that third party apps are better, but they will all have a similar process for signing in with your account.
I’m moving my account from elsewhere. Do I still need to sign up for a new account?
Yes, even if you’re moving you still need to sign up on the server you want to move to. The process of transferring accounts will ask you where you want to move to, and this is when you tell it about your new account.
Are all Fediverse servers listed on Fedi.Garden and JoinMastodon.org?
No. There are thousands of servers in total on the Fediverse, and only a small fraction are listed on these curated sites. The reason these sites only list a small fraction is because they need to meet certain minimum standards ⧉ and also be open for sign-ups. Some servers are closed to sign-ups, or don’t meet the standards, or they just don’t want to be listed on curated sites.
Also, in the case of JoinMastodon.org, it only shows Mastodon servers but there are many non-Mastodon servers on the Fediverse too. Fedi.Garden shows some non-Mastodon servers too.
Help! This server list is really overwhelming me with choice!
If you’re not sure where to sign up, just sign up on a general server from one of the human-curated lists above.
I found an automated Fediverse server list with huge numbers of servers listed! Should I use it to find a server to sign up on?
No. Automated lists just show every server they can find, regardless of whether it is reliable or safe. Automated lists are mainly designed just to show info about the entire Fediverse, rather than suggest servers to sign up on.
Simplified diagram of the Fediverse, showing many kinds of social media servers connected together
If you call someone on an ordinary phone, your phone provider will connect to the phone provider of the person you’re calling. You don’t need to be on the same provider to call someone. This works worldwide and seamlessly, because all the hundreds of phone providers in the world talk to each other. From the user’s point of view, it’s as if all phones in the world are on the same network.
The Fediverse (or “Fedi”) is basically the same idea, but for social media. The Fediverse is a collection of thousands of independent social media servers that talk to each other seamlessly. This means that the millions of users on these servers can interact with each other as if they were on a single social network.
There are many kinds of Fediverse servers, often with a specific purpose such as photo sharing, video sharing, livestreaming, book clubs etc. Although the various types of servers work very differently, they talk to each other with a common technical standard called ActivityPub. The common standard means people on totally different kinds of servers can follow and interact with each other seamlessly.
In fact, the process of interacting with other servers is so seamless, most people don’t even notice that they are communicating with other servers!
Could you give some examples of this in action? How do different kinds of servers interact?
Let’s suppose someone has an account on a Mastodon server, which means they have a Twitter-style timeline and features. They can create short posts, follow other people, reply to posts, share posts, like posts etc. That person can follow and interact with accounts from other Mastodon servers, but they can also follow accounts from completely different kinds of Fediverse servers too.
For example, if they follow a video account from PeerTube, videos from the PeerTube account will appear in their Mastodon timeline just like Mastodon posts do. If they reply to one of these video posts in their timeline on Mastodon, that reply will also appear as a comment below that video on PeerTube.
There are many other kinds of server on the Fediverse, such as Pixelfed for photos, BookWyrm for reviewing books, WordPress for writing blogs etc. All of them can be followed and interacted with from Mastodon accounts.
I thought the Fediverse and Mastodon were the same thing? Where does the word “Fediverse” come from?
Mastodon is currently the most popular kind of Fediverse server, but it’s just one kind. There are many other kinds, communicating through a common standard to form a single network. The collective term for this network of compatible servers is “The Fediverse”, which is short for “Federated Universe”. There’s a short video about the Fediverse ⧉ which sums up its nature.
