This is a quick—and I'm sure incomplete—primer for moving instances if you don't want to start from scratch on follows and followers:
[If you do decide to start from scratch and tell us your new handle so we can follow you, make it a clickable link cause ain't nobody gonna type all that in:
htt ps:// domain.name/ @ username without spaces
https://social.nursetonyf.com/@tony ]
EASY (5 steps to find and sign up to someone else's instance while keeping your followers on this one),
Medium (host your own instance if you have or get a domain name and pay for a hosting service to do all the rest for you for a monthly fee),
Pro (if you dedicate a physical server and compile Linux code [you probably wouldn't be reading this])
The EASY way:
1a: Find an instance. There are several ways, but the tool I prefer is https://mastodon.help/instances it lets you search for keywords that are in the name/description. You want an LGBT friendly instance? type it in and many will come up. You should exclude ones with closed registrations to find one to sign up on... (if some with closed registrations interest you, visit the local timeline to browse it, you can still view the timeline on closed registrations and follow individuals, you just can't live on those). To find one to live on, you need open registrations.
1b: While you're searching instances, what kinds of things matter to you in an instance? This search tool lets you filter out noxious ones, it reports how many users are on the instance and how many were active last month, how many characters they allow per post (500 is standard, some fancy ones allow way more like this one so you don't have to thread if you're wordy [I originally migrated to qoto because of the very high character limit, but since, I've discovered that they are considered noxious for "free speech BS" which I havent personally seen in my short time here, but due to how they phrase it, their position not to block instances (silence only unless hacky bots), and maybe for past moderation issues, many many instances put qoto on their reject list to block them, so I won't have access to as many instances as I want to have... the things important to me are character limit and many server connections])
2. Now that you've found an instance and signed up or requested to sign up, on the new site, go to
"Preferences>Account>Moving from a different server" to create an account alias.
3a. If you have blocked/silenced ppl on the old site (mastodon.lol) go to the old site,
"Preferences>import and export" and download the CSV files for the blocks. I don't know if this step is necessary or if this info carries over from the migration, BUT you may not be able to access the old account at all after the migration, so if this step is needed, it's best to do it now. You can also request an archive of your posts but I'm not sure what you could ever do with that file. better to have it if you want it just in case.
3b. On the old site (mastodon.lol) go to
"Preferences>Account>Move to a different account>Configure it here" and enter the handle (username@domain.name) and your password for the old account whose settings page you're on (mastodon.lol)
4. Your follows and followers will get ported over from the old account to the new account.
5a. If you had blocked/silenced anyone on the old instance, then after the migration, check to see if your blocked/silenced info has carried over to the new one by going to
"Preferences>Import and export" you may see the info already carried over. If you don't, this is where you upload those CSV files you downloaded.
5b. Done with the easy version
MEDIUM
If you have (or get) your own domain:
1. Go to the settings for your site and add a subdomain (for mine, www.nursetonyf.com, I added social.nursetonyf.com, the subdomain is the prefix to the main site name, it replaces the www).
2. Find a hosting site/service. I'm using https://masto.host which seems fairly affordable (I started with the $6 plan but I'm already near my limit on the media (20GB) so I just now upgraded to the $9 plan (50GB)... they said that the Media will go up for about 7 days because media contains all the media from everyone you follow to make your home [and maybe federated] timeline, so it grows a lot for 7 days then levels off).
3. Point your subdomain to your hosting site by setting your DNS settings the way the hosting site says, and wait for it to update. When I did it, it had an error for several hours, saying I needed to change something, but it wasn't true, I had actually done it right it just takes time for it to become a part of the worldwide web. I kept checking for errors because it said errors, I was afraid it wasn't right but didn't see anything to change other than what I had changed, but it ended up turning all green after a few hours.
4. After your site is a site, go to it and sign up as a new user. Some people give themselves 2 users, one for general use and one for admin, but I'm not sure if/why that's needed, so I am just one user not 2.
5. If you're on masto.host, then after you have a new user, go to the dashboard of masto.host and "change user role" to make the admin account have the admin settings appear in the setting area of the mastodon page.
Done with medium.
PRO:
If you're a code-writing Linux pro, you haven't read this far, and you know more than I do about it! If you want to become a pro, there are many how-tos out there but I'm not a pro (yet).
