Every account on Mastodon and the rest of the Fediverse has a unique “account address”, also known as its “Fediverse address”, “Fediverse account address” or simply “handle”. These unique account addresses look like this:
@ username @ server
The first part is the username you chose when you signed up on your server, and the second part is the server itself.
Your address is usually visible on your profile page, just below your profile picture and display name.
If you want people to follow you on the Fediverse, give them your full account address from your profile page. Addresses are by far the most reliable way to make an account’s profile appear on your server, because only that specific account has that unique address. You can exchange Fediverse account addresses with friends in real life the same way you would exchange phone numbers.
How do I follow someone’s account address?
To follow an account address:
- Copy and paste the account address into the search box on Mastodon (or whatever Fediverse server type you’re using)
- Some apps will automatically search for anything pasted in the search box, but some may need you to click Search or 🔍️ or press Enter to activate the search
- Wait a short while, the account associated with that account address should appear in the search results. This can sometimes take a few seconds to happen if the address is unfamiliar to your server.
- When the account appears in the search results, click on the account to go to the account’s profile page
- On the profile page, click the Follow button to follow the account
If you can’t see the search box, click here to see how to access search on the apps and website.
What else can I do with a Fediverse address apart from follow people?
Fediverse addresses are how mentions work: just put an address in a post to mention someone. This will send them a notification, and will also let them see your post if you have set the post to restricted visibility.
Other types of Fediverse addresses will also work on Mastodon
As well as Mastodon account addresses, the above features will also work with accounts from other types of Fediverse servers including Pixelfed, PeerTube, OwnCast, BookWyrm, Friendica etc. When a non-Mastodon account is viewed within Mastodon it will look exactly like a Mastodon profile, but it’s actually on another server type. If you open its original page you will see what it “really” looks like.
You can follow non-Mastodon accounts from Mastodon, and their posts will appear in your main timeline just like Mastodon posts do.
Why do Fediverse account addresses look like email addresses?
Fediverse account 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 on the correct server.
Are Fediverse addresses unique?
Yes. Because only one person can register a particular username on a particular server, an account’s full address (@ user @ server) is always a unique combination.
Why does it usually show just the first part of my address in published 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 within a published post. However, if there are two addresses with the same username being discussed in the same post, then Mastodon will show both 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 for keywords?
You can usually find accounts by just searching for keywords, but 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.
After an account is “noticed” for the first time by your server, it also becomes searchable on your server by keywords. Having to use account addresses to discover an account is intended as a fallback feature, it’s only needed if your server hasn’t noticed that particular account yet.
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.)
I tried searching for a particular account address but it wouldn’t show up. I’m sure the address is correct, what is going on?
If your server admin has defederated (blocked) another server, then searches for account addresses on that blocked server will not work. This is usually done for safety reasons, to prevent interactions with a badly moderated server.