Over the past few months, the Fediverse, a selection of social platforms using the ActivityPub Protocol has received a major boost with a huge number of people leaving established platforms like X (formerly Twitter) and moving to decentralized services like Mastodon. Another platform, Bluesky, powered by the AT Protocol has also become popular.

Now, the aim of a decentralized internet is that people across apps can interact with each other. While this concept still requires a lot of work to become practically functional, tools like Bridgy Fed are already turning theory into reality by allowing platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky to interact with each other.

Set up your bridged account

Before you can connect your Mastodon and Bluesky accounts, you need to set up your Bridgy Fed account.

  1. Log in to your Mastodon account and follow the account @bsky.brid.gy. Keep in mind that some Mastodon instances may be blocking this account. You can search for it using the search box on the left.
  1. Then log in to your Bluesky account and follow the account @ap.brid.gy.
  1. Once you've followed the accounts, Bridgy Fed will automatically create an account and you will see a notification on Bluesky indicating the same. Other users can then follow this account and you can also find your own account on the other service and share it.
  1. If you use Bluesky, you will find your Fediverse account in the following format, @[handle]@bsky.brid.gy. On the other hand, if you have an account on any Fediverse app, your Bluesky account will have the @[user].[instance].ap.brid.gy format.
  2. Once you've connected your accounts, you can interact with Bluesky users from Mastodon. And the reverse is also true so you can also interact with Mastodon from Bluesky.
  3. When someone likes a post or replies to it, it will show up in mentions. Thus, you can interact with others organically using Bluesky or Mastodon depending on which platform you are on at the time.

Things to know

  • For Bridgy Fed to work properly, both people who want to interact with each other using Mastodon and Bluesky need to bridge their accounts. If you or the other person has not bridged their accounts, you won't be able to see any comments.
  • Additionally, on Bluesky, you can only make 250-word long posts, while there is no hard limit in the Fediverse. So, sometimes your Bluesky posts may be cut short when you view them on the other platform.
  • There are other issues as well that make Bridgy Fed less than a perfect solution for cross-platform interaction between Bluesky and Mastodon. For instance, bridging your Bluesky accounts using it is not always available. If you encounter this issue, you will need to wait until the feature becomes available again.