When I first signed up for Mastodon, I created my account salcode
on mastodon.social. Eventually I decided I wanted to be on a smaller server, specifically phpc.social. These are my notes on how I made this move.
The data move is limited to: (1) Updating your new account to follow the people you followed on your old account and (2) redirecting anyone following your old account to follow you at your new account. Other data can be exported from your old account before or after the move.
1. Create a New Account on the New Server
Setup an account on the new server and waited for it to be approved. You can use the same username as the old server or a new username. I used the same username, salcode
, on both.
2. Configure the New Account to Accept a Move from the Old Account
To ready the new account (phpc.social/@salcode), create an alias to your old account (mastodon.social/@salcode).
To do this on the new account, click Edit profile
Then click Account
in the sidebar menu.
On this page, scroll down to Moving from a different account
and click the create an account alias
link.
For a shortcut, you should be able to go directly to /settings/aliases
on the new server (e.g. phpc.social/settings/aliases).
Here you enter the old account using the “handle” format (e.g. salcode@mastodon.social
).
and click CREATE ALIAS
.
3. Move the Old Account to the New Account
Go to the Account
page on the Old Account, i.e. go to /auth/edit
on the old server (e.g. mastodon.social/auth/edit).
Scroll down to Move to a different account
and click the configure it here
link.
Enter your new account using the “handle” format (e.g. salcode@phpc.social
) and your “Current Password” on the old account, then click MOVE FOLLOWERS
.
and you should get a message that says
Your account is now redirecting to salcode@phpc.social and your followers are being moved over.
I’m going through this process now, and discovering the hard way that even though I backed up an archive on the old instance, it is not possible to import it into the new instance! With all this talk about portability between instances, they sure don’t make it clear that you will *LOSE* all of your existing content! Huge bummer.