MEDIA

Migrating 101: Moving On Mastodon

A simple guide to migrating from one server to another on Mastodon

Photo by Brooke Cagle on Unsplash

Migrating servers is pretty painless, but it does require a bit of work on your part. It’s not a one-click action (yet). If you just started and don’t have any posts and followers or anything worth saving, you can skip the first step. Otherwise, you’re going to need some things from your old server before migrating.

Step One. You’ll probably need to do this on a desktop computer. If you’re savvy enough to know how to download .csv files to some sort of cloud storage, you can do it on a mobile device, but it’s easier if you have access to a computer.

Go to Preferences>Import and Export. You’ll see a number of things you can download as .csv files. Followers, Lists, Block List, Mute List, Blocked Domains, and Bookmarks. Click on the download icon next to the word “csv” for each one. Store them in a folder for safekeeping.

Unfortunately, your posts won’t travel with you, but they will remain on the other server.

Step Two. Now you’re ready to migrate. Login to your new server and go to Preferences>Account. You’ll see “Moving from a different account. To move from another account to this one, first you need to create an account alias.” Click and…