How to Find Your Twitter People on Mastodon

people you follow on Twitter may be on Mastodon and you can find them

Trying to find people you connected with on Twitter here on Mastodon is complex right now.

I’m using the three tools to try to get people’s handles over here on Mastodon off of Twitter. All of these are a little unstable right now since so many people are using them at once.

1. https://twitodon.com/
   You log into both your accounts with it, let it work, and then can download a file you can then upload to Mastodon to follow people. The catch: those people need to have used it too. Working as of April 18, 2023.
2. https://pruvisto.org/debirdify/
   UPDATE April 18, 2023: “Debirdify has been suspended by Twitter without warning or explanation” so for now this does not work.
   Lets you basically scan your Twitter folks profiles to see if they’ve left a Mastodon forwarding address for people. Then you can download a file you can then upload to Mastodon to follow people (or manually look through, which I recommend). The catch: if might get things that aren’t actually Mastodon addresses, or their colleagues info scooped up instead.
3. https://fedifinder.glitch.me/
   UPDATE April 18, 2023: “Looks like Twitter broke something with v2 API. You can use https://fedifinder-v1.glitch.me/ which uses v1.”
   Like Debirdify (number 2 on this list), it scans your twitter folks profiles over there to try to find their Mastodon handles. It also download a file you can then upload to Mastodon to follow people (or manually look through, which I recommend). The catch: it also might scoop up stuff that isn’t actually a Mastodon addresses, or their colleagues info.
4. UPDATE December 5, 2022: https://www.movetodon.org/
   UPDATE April 18, 2023: seems this is now offline with the site saying, “Movetodon is not working properly. Movetodon needs to use the API of Twitter and Twitter has blocked our access to the API”.
   A tool that launched after I originally wrote this post, Movetodon allows one to see and follow on Mastodon people you followed on Twitter. Movetodon has a nice interface and seems to work well. In conjunction with the other 3, you can get a pretty good sense of where your people from Twitter are on Mastodon. As with all of these, some folks you follow on Twitter might be on Mastodon and have not posted anything or done anything that allows these 4 tools to find them.
5. UPDATE: January 31, 2023: https://mastodon-flock.vercel.app/
   The delightful retro Windows 95 style interface for this tool is awesome. Took me about 4 tries to have it succeed in loading for the “typical” method, and the “advanced” took me revoking the app permissions in both my twitter and mastodon and then also removing vercel.app cookies from my browser to re-attempt it again. Then the advanced method worked too. Such difficulties may be a Twitter issue and not the fault of the developers of Mastodon Flock. The well executed Windows 95 style interface alone make this worth looking at, and it works well once it works. Working as of April 18, 2023.

Using all of these tools will likely do the best possible job finding your Twitter people on Mastodon.

So far, there is no single, easy way to migrate. That is kinda what happens when a single company with 7,500 employees keeping things working is no longer involved. Disappointing, but Mastodon can be an alternative and stop-gap right now; Mastodon may be able to grow into a more resilient option than Twitter or any other run-by-a-single-company social network ever has been. Right now, much of Mastodon is just struggling to accept the huge number of new people using it. Patience is probably a good plan. Good luck, and let me know if I can help you. I’m @davidaugust@mastodon.online on Mastodon and have other links on my linktree, and should always be findable through davidaugust.com.

© Copyright November 18, 2022, David August, all rights reserved davidaugust.com

David August is an award-winning actor, acting coach, writer, director, and producer. He plays a role in the movie Dependent’s Day, and after its theatrical run, it’s now out on Amazon. He has appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live on ABC, on the TV show Ghost Town, and many others. Off-screen, he has worked at ad agencies, start-ups, production companies, and major studios, helping them tell stories their customers and clients adore. He has guest lectured at USC’s Marshall School of Business about the internet.

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