No Stupid Questions @lemmy.world Twoafros @lemmy.world 6 days ago

How can I migrate my current Lemmy profile to another lemmy instance?

How can I migrate all my likes, community subscriptions, posts, comments etc to another instance?

Is this even currently possible?

Thanks for reading

23 comments

Migrating or moving an account is not part of ActivityPub. Mastodon extended the protocol to have a move activity.

Unless Lemmy devs come up with something similar and extend the protocol, there is no way to properly move/migrate the account to another instance. The current solution is to create a new account on your desired instance and then export the data on your old instance and import it on your new instance and leave a note in your bio for old instance/account[^1]

Start here for details on this. According to the devs this would be nice to have but is of very low priority.

[^1]: ignoring the fact that you need to re-subscruibe to communities with manual approval and losing all your comments and posts history as well as all private messaging history and contacts.
- re-subscruibe to communities with manual approval
  
  Are they that common? I usually find the feature used to lock inactive communities
  
  losing all your comments and posts history
  
  They are not lost, they are still there, and people know they are yours if you post your new account on your old account bio.
  
  private messaging history and contacts.
  
  Lemmy shouldn't be used for messaging, that's why you can show your Matrix account in your profile
  
  losing all your comments and posts history
  
  They are not lost, they are still there
  
  Yes, they’re there, in the old account on the old instance, and not here, where the new account on the new instance is.
  
  Lemmy shouldn’t be used for messaging
  
  That is entirely not the point. (Also: messaging on Lemy and instant messaging have nothing in common and should not be confused.)
- Thanks. I wonder why this is a low priority. If the people attracted t the fediverse want decentralization and interoperability, it would make sense that many people would want to migrate from one instance to another as easily and smoothly as possible.
  
  Thanks again for the detailed answer
  
  To be honest, it takes two clicks in the settings to export and import the subscription list, you can then start using your new account as if it was the old one.
  
  I did it many times in the past, it works quite well.
AfaIk, posts and comments cannot be exported.

For the rest you may use the "export settings" function in the "personal settings" section on the webpage of your Lemmy instance (yet I don't know what is actually exported).

Alternatively, you may use one of the tools mentioned in this post (the post is in German, the linked webpages are in English): https://slrpnk.net/post/10923543
- Thanks for answering. I will do this
Is it really that important? I could understand wanting to keep saved posts/comments, but you can easily copy paste those to a notepad.
- In my case I have around 500 blocked users and around 700 blocked communities. I make a new account around once a year and I'd rather not start from scratch with each one.
  
  You don't have to as those are in the settings you can export/import
  
  That's an excellent point. I also have a huge list of blocked comms. Didn't think about that.
U can export and import ur profile but thats about it. Accounts really should juat be a private key u hold that can be used on any instance but thats too advanced for the devs to figure out.
- Thanks, I will export and import my profile. Hopefully things will be smoother in the future, but being able to export the some of the profile is better than nothing
There's an 'Import/export settings' feature in your profile. It'll move your subscribtions and blocks but not comments, likes and such. Just your user settings.
- Thanks! Will do this
i switched instances without bothering to migrate and i'm wondering why you want to migrate anything.
- I guess if you have a lot of communities you follow you'd not want to forget to resub.
  
  i had a similar thought and i think not trying to treat lemmy like it's reddit is beneficial here; or at least to me.
You should check out NOSTR.

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