Mastodon has a feature to move accounts from one instance to another instance. This lets you consolidate your ActivityPub identity to a Mastodon-compatible username on Micro.blog.
To move accounts, 2 things are required:
- From the new instance, set up an “alias” that links your new and old accounts. In Micro.blog, this is under Account → View Mastodon Details → Aliases.
- From the old instance, initiate a migration to the new instance. In Mastodon, this is under your account settings.
As an example, if I want to move from @manton@mastodon.social to @manton@manton.org (powered by Micro.blog), in Account → View Mastodon Details → Aliases, I would add @manton@mastodon.social.
The next step is to sign into the old Mastodon instance and tell it to move to Micro.blog. Mastodon will verify the aliases and start the migration. It will also lock your Mastodon account.
Updating your followers can take quite a while. Likely hours and possibly over a day, if you have hundreds or thousands of followers. You can watch the progress as Mastodon essentially decrements your follower count on the old instance.
Here’s what Mastodon now looks like for my account, to tell people that I’ve moved:
If you’re using Micro.blog, also remember that Micro.blog is not Mastodon. You can follow and reply to anyone on Mastodon, but you can’t use Mastodon-only clients like the upcoming Ivory from Tapbots.