Migrating Mastodon Accounts

Moving a Mastodon account to a new server is a process that involves following several steps in a specific order. It typically takes under an hour, but full user migration can take several months.

Limitations

There are a few limitations to Mastodon and things you should know about a migration first.

Things You Can Migrate

• Followers - Automatically
• Bookmarks - CSV Download/Upload
• Follows - CSV Download/Upload
• Lists - CSV Download/Upload
• Mutes - CSV Download/Upload
• Blocks - CSV Download/Upload
• Domain Blocks - CSV Download/Upload
• Hashtags - Manual Data Entry

Things You Can’t Move

At this point your posts and media are stuck on the old account if you are on someone else's mastodon server or one of the large public instances like mastodon.social you cannot move you posts.

Portability If you like Mastodon it is better to move onto an instance and domain that you have some control over sooner rather than later. One advantage of this is a fully portable account

If you are already hosted on a custom domain it is possible to keep everything. You just need:

• A copy of your database data and media from your old host
• A new host that will restore this data for you (such as fedihost)

Contact our support after creating your instance and we will help you.

What You'll Need

• The Login Details For Your Old Mastodon Account
• The Login Details For Your New Mastodon Account
• A large enough screen to place two windows side by side

Steps

1. Create New Account

Create a new blank account on your new server. Do not interact or start using the account.

2. Old Account: Export Data

On your old account go to download each of the CSV files in Preferences > Import and Export > Data Export

Individually save them with the default names in a folder. You can also request an archive of your posts for your own records or if you are planning to use slurp to migrate posts.

3. New Account: Import Data

On your new account go to Preferences > Import And Export > Import and upload one by one each of the CSV files that you downloaded from the old server.

The CSV files by default have names that closely match the imports.

blocked_accounts.csv -> Blocking list
blocked_domains.csv -> Domain blocking list
bookmarks.csv -> Bookmarks
following_accounts.csv -> Following list
lists.csv -> Lists
muted_accounts.csv -> Muting list

4. New Account: Prepare Alias

On your new account go to Preferences > Account > Moving From A Different Account

Click on Create an Account Alias and follow the instructions. You will need to wait at least 5 minutes before completing the mirrored action of this on your old server. While you wait we can Move Hashtags and Change Display Name as outlined below.

5. Old Account: Move Hashtags

On your old account go to you profile page and choose the 3 dots beside your profile and select 'followed hashtags' you can also reach this by adding 'followed_tags' to the url of your server.

Then add each of these to your new account by searching each hashtag and choosing "Follow hashtag".

6. New Account: Set Display Name and Bio

On your new account copy and paste your display name, bio and links from your old account. You can also set your profile and banner image too.

7. Old Account: Change Display Name and Bio

On your old account make it extra clear that your account is not active by editing the profile and changing the Display Name to "Your Name (Moved)". Change your bio text to add a link to the new account address.

8. Old Account: Move Followers

Five minutes should have now passed since you setup the "Account Alias" on your old account. On your old account go to Preferences > Account > Moving To A Different Account

Put your new handle in the box and click continue, this will both redirect the account and migrate your followers. It can take several days for the followers to migrate.

Issues

Missing Followers

When you move accounts you will usually discover that you appear to have lost some followers. This is usually down to the ghost follower phenomenon. When a server leaves the fediverse it doesn't always broadcast this information and so servers that have a tally of users who are following them assume followers are there who may no-longer be. You often only find this out during a move.

Incomplete Move

Another common issue with large accounts is an incomplete move. Sometimes you need to run the follower migration several times. This can be annoying due to the cooldown time between moves.