If you’re moving from Twitter to Mastodon, you probably don’t want to start from scratch, but want to find as many of your existing friends as possible there. You can try to do this by hand or you can do it quickly with a practical tool.
Even if Elon Musk bows to a survey he initiated himself and resigns as Twitter boss, it is absolutely not certain how the social network will continue. Users are therefore still switching to the Fediverse alternative Mastodon in droves or have already set up an account there. Some want to turn their backs on Twitter forever, others just want an option if the network doesn’t recover from Musk’s antics.
Either way, at Mastodon you don’t necessarily want to start all over again, but want to reconnect with as many previous contacts as possible. The easiest way to do this is with practical tools that automatically do the search for old Twitter friends.
Well-known and safe open source tools are Debirdify by Manuel Eberl, Twitodon by Dani Llewellyn, FediFinder by Luca Hammer or Movetodon by Tibor Martini. To use them, you log in to three of the tools with a Twitter and Mastodon account and grant the necessary read rights. Debirdify is all you need to log in to Twitter.
Operation is easy. With Debirdify you still have to click whether you want to search your followers, users you follow or blocked or muted accounts. With the other tools, results appear automatically and there are additional fine adjustments for more experienced users. A problem for some who want to switch may be that the tools are only available in English.
The results with a test account were mixed. Among 839 followed Twitter accounts, FediFinder found 84 also logged into Mastodon, Twitodon only six, Debirdify 78, Movetodon 79.
The problem with Twitodon is that the tool only works for accounts whose owners have already used Twitodon themselves. Basically, Debirdify works great and displays results in a nice graphical way, sorted by instances. However, since you’re only logged in with Twitter here, it’s a bit more complicated to follow individual accounts that are found. You must first call up a hit and log into Mastodon in the following window. It is also possible to export all accounts found in one go as a CSV file.
FediFinder is more user-friendly. The tool also displays the search results in a well-organized manner and allows export as a CSV file. In addition, you can follow an account directly with one click. Movetodon prepares the hits particularly easily. You can only hide results that you are already following. But wonderfully uncomplicated are the options to follow all found Twitter accounts at once or individual contacts.
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