Mastodon migration

Moving to a new server

Patricia Aas, 18 November 2022

I will try to keep this short and simple. We are going to try to migrate from one Mastodon server to another.

Pre-requisites

  • You have a new account on a new server, and an old account on an old server
  • You prefer the new account and want to move all of your followers over to it
  • On the new account you don’t require manually approving new followers (Preferences > Profile > Appearance: “Require follow requests” should be unchecked)

Plan

  • Part 1 : New Server: Prepare your profile
  • Part 2 : Old Server: Download your follows list
  • Part 3 : New Server: Upload follows list
  • Part 4 : New Server: Set up the account alias
  • Part 5 : Old Server: Perform the move
  • Epilogue

Part 1

New Server: Prepare your profile

  1. Make sure to copy over bio, profile pic, banner etc before the move
  2. Once the move is done this can be difficult to get a hold of

Part 2

Old Server: Download your follows list

  1. Log into the server you’re moving from
  2. Go to “Preferences” (right panel)
  3. Click on “Import and export” (left panel)
  4. Click on CSV for “Follows”
  5. Download the file “following_accounts.csv” to your Downloads folder
  6. Do the same for any other category like “You block”, “You mute” etc
  7. Consider if you want to download your archive “Request your archive”

Part 3

New Server: Upload follows list

  1. Log into the server you’re moving to
  2. Go to “Preferences” (right panel)
  3. Click on “Import and export” (left panel)
  4. Click on “Import” (left panel)
  5. Check that “Following list” is selected in the dropdown
  6. Make sure the “Merge” radio button is selected
  7. Click “Choose File” and pick the “following_accounts.csv” file we downloaded earlier
  8. Press the “UPLOAD” button
  9. Do a similar thing with each of the other CSV files you downloaded in Part 2 (make sure to select the right thing in the dropdown)

Part 4

New Server: Set up the account alias

  1. Log into the server you’re moving to
  2. Write and pin a post saying you’re moving here so that your follows will understand what is happening
  3. Go to “Preferences” (right panel)
  4. Click on “Account” (left panel)
  5. Click the link under “Moving from a different account” : “create an account alias”
  6. Paste in the handle of the old account @user@server
  7. Click on “CREATE ALIAS”

Part 5

Old Server: Perform the move

  1. Log into the server you’re moving from
  2. Write a post where you tell people you are moving and pin it (perhaps also write it in the bio)
  3. Go to “Preferences” (right panel)
  4. Click on “Account” (left panel)
  5. Scroll down
  6. Click on the link under “Move to a different account”
  7. Put the handle (@user@server) to the NEW account in the left field
  8. Put the password of the OLD account in the right field
  9. Click on the button “MOVE FOLLOWERS”
  10. In a browser, go to your profiles full url (example http://example.social/@your_handle) and check that it says (across the top of your profile page) “YOUR_NAME has indicated that their new account is now:” and that underneath is your new account information and a button with the text “Go to profile”

Note that the migration of your followers can take multiple days, depending on how overloaded the servers are for both you and your followers.

Epilogue

We will keep the old account for now, it is being redirected and our old posts are there. In the future we might want to delete it permanently, but for now we will leave it like this.