Short answer
Treat a Mastodon migration as an inventory problem before it is a settings problem. Before you touch any migration option, write down every place your current handle appears publicly: your profile URL, the handles you list in your bio, links you have posted, and any site where you have written your Mastodon address down. Then move the account, then re-check the inventory one item at a time. A redirect is a forwarding sign, not a completed move, and it does not tell you whether your posts or your relationship lists came with you.
Why the distinction matters
Mastodon separates two things that people often treat as one: the account move and the profile redirect. The move is the operation that carries followers to a new account. The redirect is a pointer left on the old profile so visitors who arrive at the old address are sent onward. They are configured separately and can be in different states at the same time, which is exactly how people end up believing a migration is finished when it is not.
Mastodon distinguishes an account move from a profile redirect. Source
The second thing to internalise is that a move is not a backup. Content does not travel with followers.
Moving an account can move followers but does not move posts. Source
That single fact should reshape your plan: if your posts matter to you, the move is not the moment you preserve them. You need a separate copy of anything you want to keep, exported or archived before you begin.
Step 1: Build the before-inventory
Create a plain document with four columns: location, current value, action needed, verified after move. Fill it in while you are still on the old account, because once the redirect is live the old profile becomes harder to read as a record of what you had.
| Location type | What to record | Why it matters after the move |
|---|---|---|
| Profile URL | Full old handle and server | The redirect lives here; you need to confirm it points at the right place |
| Bio links | Every handle or profile link in your bio text | Bio text does not rewrite itself |
| Pinned or recent posts | Handles and links you have published | Published text keeps the old handle |
| External sites | Anywhere you typed your Mastodon address | These are outside the platform entirely |
| Relationship lists | Following, followers, blocks, mutes | These may need their own handling |
Do not skip the external sites. A forum signature, a personal site, a newsletter footer or a portfolio page is where a stale handle does the most quiet damage, because nobody visiting your new profile will ever see it.
If you are unsure whether a handle is still yours or still live on another network, the general technique for checking public handles is covered in the guide to finding social media accounts by username. That is a different task from a server migration, and it is worth keeping separate in your head.
Step 2: Handle the relationship lists explicitly
The follower transfer is the part Mastodon automates. The rest of your social graph is not guaranteed to follow along in the same operation.
Following lists, blocks and mutes may require separate export and import steps. Source
Practically, this means you should decide before the move whether your following list, your blocks and your mutes are worth reconstructing on the new account. Blocks and mutes in particular are easy to forget and annoying to rebuild from memory. If the platform offers export and import for these, use them as a deliberate pair: export from the old account, import to the new one, then spot-check that the import actually took. Do not assume a successful import means every entry landed.
Step 3: Move, then verify in a fixed order
Verification is where most migrations quietly fail. Work through your inventory in a consistent order so you notice what is missing rather than what you happen to remember.
- Confirm the new account exists and its profile is readable without logging in.
- Confirm the redirect on the old profile points to the new account, not to a typo or a placeholder.
- Check the follower count on the new account against your expectation, remembering that the number will not match exactly.
- Re-check your following list, blocks and mutes against your export.
- Walk the external sites in your inventory one by one and update the handle where it appears.
- Re-read your new bio and pinned posts for any leftover reference to the old handle.
Step 2 deserves emphasis. A redirect that resolves to the wrong address is worse than no redirect, because it looks like success. Open the old profile in a private browsing window and follow the redirect yourself rather than trusting a settings page that says the redirect is configured.
Decision table: what to do with each item
| Item | Move carries it? | Your action |
|---|---|---|
| Followers | Yes, as part of the move | Verify the count on the new account |
| Posts | No | Archive or export separately before moving |
| Following list | Not reliably | Export, import, spot-check |
| Blocks and mutes | Not reliably | Export, import, spot-check |
| Old profile URL | Redirect only | Confirm it resolves to the new account |
| Bio text and pinned posts | No | Rewrite by hand |
| External sites | No | Update each one from your inventory |
Common mistakes
Treating the redirect as the finish line. The redirect is a signpost. It says nothing about followers, lists or posts, and it can be live while the move itself is incomplete.
Assuming posts came along. They did not. If you need them, capture them before you start, not after.
Rebuilding blocks and mutes from memory. You will not remember them all. Export before you move.
Leaving the old account’s bio untouched. If the old profile still displays your old bio and links, visitors who land there before the redirect resolves see stale information.
Forgetting the places you typed your handle years ago. Forum profiles, old comments and personal sites are the long tail of a migration, and they are the part that never gets finished.
Reusing the old handle on the new server without checking. A handle that is free on one server may behave differently elsewhere; confirm the new address resolves before you publish it anywhere.
Assuming a public match proves ownership. If you search a handle and find profiles, those are leads to review, not proof that the same person runs all of them. Matching photos and bios do not establish identity.
Where a handle review fits
A migration is a good moment to review which public handles are actually attached to you, because you are about to publish a new one and you want the old ones accounted for. TraceSeek covers 3,000+ platforms across social media, developer platforms, media and creative sites, gaming networks, professional communities, forums and dating apps, and a first scan is free. The product fact sheet describes a scan time of 20-30 seconds. It reports public matches; it does not change settings on any platform, does not expose private records, and cannot tell you whether an account is active or dormant. Use it as an inventory aid alongside your own list, not as a substitute for it.
Protecting your own footprint after the move
Once the new account is live, the migration is only half done. The remaining work is subtraction.
Decide what happens to the old account. If you keep it as a redirect, keep its bio honest and short so nobody is misled. If you plan to close it, do that only after you have confirmed the new account is reachable, your followers arrived, and your external links point somewhere real. Preserve a recovery method you control until closure is complete; do not lock yourself out of an account you may still need to fix.
Remember that editing a profile is not deletion. An emptied bio or a changed display name does not remove stored data, and removing a login connection from a third-party service is not the same as deleting an account. If your goal is to reduce your footprint, treat each of those as a separate task with its own confirmation step.
Finally, re-run your inventory a week later. Redirects, imported lists and external links fail in ways that are invisible on the day you set them up. A second pass catches the items your first pass assumed were fine.
Key facts
Mastodon distinguishes an account move from a profile redirect.
Moving an account can move followers but does not move posts.
Following lists, blocks and mutes may require separate export and import steps.
TraceSeek covers 3,000+ platforms, and its first scan is free.