So, you’ve given up on Twitter, and moved to Mastodon or Bluesky. But you have friends/followers on the other one, and keeping tabs on both networks is a bit of a chore. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could only be on one, but keep up with all your friends? Good news! There’s this thing called Bridgy Fed which will let you do that, and it’s easy to use. (I didn’t make it, I’m just letting you know.)

BlueSky users:
i. Make sure the slider in BSky>Settings>Moderation>Logged-out visibility …is set to Off.
ii. Search for and follow @ap.brid.gy (If it follows you back, and you are set to approve followers, accept its request.)
iii. That’s it (Well, maybe wait a few minutes for cogs to whirr)
Now all your future Bluesky posts can be seen on Mastodon*, and you can be followed by Mastodon users in their Mastodon app. If your Bluesky name is e.g. @myname.bsky.social, then you can be found in Mastodon as @myname.bsky.social@bsky.brid.gy . (Yeah, okay, it’s a bit long, but they’ll only have to find it once.)

(That’s bRId as in bridge, not bIRd as in twitter. Easy to misread, so watch out there.)

Mastodon users:
i. Search for @bsky.brid.gy@bsky.brid.gy and follow it. (If it follows you back, and you are set to approve followers, accept its request.)
ii. That’s it (Well, maybe wait a few minutes for cogs to whirr)
Now all your future Mastodon posts will get pushed through to Bluesky, and anyone on Bluesky can see them, and follow your Mastodon account in their Bluesky app. If your Mastodon name is e.g. @yourname@mas.to, then it can be seen in Bluesky as @yourname.mas.to.ap.brid.gy .

The bad news?
i. It’s still in beta, so there are a few minor bugs, but the bottom line is, it works.
ii. It’s opt-in, so you have to enable it for your account(s). Which means that if a BSkyer replies to your Mastodon post, (or vice-versa) you won’t see/get notified of it unless they are bridged too. And you can only follow a friend on the other network if they are bridged too. Which is why I’ve written this post, to try to encourage more folks to give it a go.

But what if you have an account on each network, and a fair few followers on both? You’re bound to lose some, right? Well, perhaps. I have a BSky and a Mastodon account, and I’ve bridged both. But I’ve decided that I want to mainly use Mastodon. So in my BSky account profile, I wrote “Don’t follow this account, follow @thevoidtlmb.moth.social.ap.brid.gy instead, please”. Then I can occasionally post from the BSky account saying “I’m over here: [bridged account address]”, and maybe also make the occasional post about the bridge. You could do the same thing, but the other way around if you prefer to mainly use BlueSky. (Feel free to link to this post if you like, as, although it’s all quite simple, it can take a few paragraphs to explain it all.)

Give the Bridge a try folks, ‘cos as @_elena says, #TheFutureIsFederated!

(I’m @TheVoidTLMB@moth.social in Mastodon, and you can find me in Bluesky by searching for @thevoidtlmb.moth.social.ap.brid.gy .)

Read the full documentation here to see full details of exactly what will/won’t get bridged, and why. Thanks Ryan!

*Actually, on any fediverse platform.