Connect social accounts to the Reader

Connect social accounts to the WordPress.com Reader to read, like, repost, and reply to activity from Bluesky, Mastodon, and the Fediverse in one place. Connected accounts appear in the Social section of the Reader sidebar.

You can connect the following social accounts in the WordPress.com Reader:

• Bluesky: a social network where people share short posts.
• Mastodon: an open source social network made up of many independent communities (called instances) that all talk to one another.
• The Fediverse: your own WordPress.com site, so people on Mastodon and other open social networks can follow your posts and you can see their replies in the Reader.

There is no limit to the number of social accounts you can connect. Mix and match as you like, for example, two Bluesky accounts and a Mastodon account, or your WordPress.com site plus a Bluesky account.

If you already use Jetpack Social, your existing Bluesky and Mastodon connections are reused in the Reader automatically. You will not have to start from scratch.

When you open the Reader’s Social section for the first time, any existing Bluesky or Mastodon connections from Jetpack Social are already listed in the sidebar. You may be asked to reconnect a Mastodon connection once; see Reconnect a Mastodon account from Jetpack Social for why.

To connect a Bluesky account, you need a Bluesky handle and a Bluesky app password. A Bluesky handle usually looks like alice.bsky.social.

If you are part of another community on the ATmosphere network, such as Blacksky, you can also connect that account to the WordPress.com Reader.

To connect Reader to Bluesky:

1. Open the Reader at wordpress.com/reader.
2. In the Reader sidebar, go to Social → Add account.
3. Choose Bluesky.
4. Enter your full Bluesky handle (for example, alice.bsky.social).
5. Enter a Bluesky app password. This is a password you create on Bluesky specifically for the Reader, so you can revoke access at any time. Do not enter your Bluesky password here. You can create a Bluesky app password in your Bluesky settings.
6. Click Connect.

Your Bluesky timeline appears in the Reader sidebar. From there, you can scroll your feed, like, repost, reply, and write new posts without leaving the Reader.

Mastodon is an open source social network made of many independent communities, each running on their own server (called an instance). A Mastodon username usually looks like yourname@instance.example — for example, alice@mastodon.social.

To connect Reader to Mastodon:

1. Open the Reader and go to Social → Add account in the sidebar.
2. Choose Mastodon.
3. Enter the domain of your Mastodon instance (for example, mastodon.social).
4. Click Continue. You are sent to your Mastodon instance to sign in. WordPress.com never sees your Mastodon password.
5. After signing in, approve the permissions the Reader is asking for. You are sent back to the Reader.

Your Mastodon timeline appears in the Reader sidebar. From there, you can scroll your feed, favorite, boost, reply, and write new posts without leaving the Reader.

If you have used Jetpack Social to share posts to Mastodon in the past, that connection is already listed in the Reader’s Social section. The first time you open it, the Reader prompts you to reconnect it.

This is because Jetpack Social needed permission to publish your posts. The Reader needs broader permissions so you can read your timeline, favorites, boost, reply, follow others, and receive notifications. After reconnecting, the account works in both Jetpack Social and the Reader.

The Fediverse is the broader network of open social platforms (including Mastodon, Pixelfed, and others) that can all follow and talk to one another. When your WordPress.com site joins the Fediverse, people on those networks can follow your posts, like them, and reply to them, and you can see those reactions in the Reader.

A few things to know before you add your Fediverse site:

• This feature is available on WordPress.com sites that do not have plugins installed.
• Site administrators can turn it on.
• You can connect more than one WordPress site to the Reader’s Social section.

The Fediverse feature is enabled on a per-site basis from your site’s settings. If you have already enabled the option to join the Open Social Web on a WordPress site, that Fediverse connection is already listed in the Reader’s Social section.

To join the Fediverse:

1. Open your site’s WP Admin.
2. Go to Settings → ActivityPub.
3. Click Join the Open Social Web.

For full instructions, see Enter the Fediverse.

Once enabled, your site appears automatically in the Social section of the Reader sidebar.

From there, you can see who follows your site from across the Fediverse, read the replies and reactions to your posts, and follow other Fediverse accounts back.

Each social network has its own character limit. Bluesky caps posts at 300 characters, and most Mastodon instances cap them at 500. When a post or reply you are writing in the Reader goes past the limit, the composer offers to hand your draft off to one of your WordPress sites, where you can finish writing and publish it as a full blog post instead.

You will see a message like “Too long for Bluesky? Publish it on your own site instead.” with a “Move to editor” button. Pick one of your WordPress sites if you have more than one, click the button, and the WordPress editor opens in a new tab with your text already saved as a draft. From there, write as much as you like, add images, and publish it as a regular blog post.

This is also useful if a reply you started turns out to be longer than a social post can hold.

Publishing on the Fediverse has no character limit, so you can publish long posts straight from the Reader. If a post grows beyond a quick note, the Reader gives you the option to move your draft into the block editor, where you have access to its full formatting options.

You can connect as many social accounts as you like. To add another account:

1. Open the Social section in the Reader sidebar.
2. Click “Add account“.
3. Choose Bluesky, Mastodon, or your own WordPress site.

Sharing a post to another online service may subject your shared content to that other service’s terms of use. Many other online services have terms of use or content guidelines that differ from our WordPress.com Terms of Service. Typically, these terms give the service rights in user-published content greater than the rights we (Automattic) have in content published to WordPress.com.