Mastodon is the largest decentralized social network on the internet. Instead of a single website, it’s a network of millions of users in independent communities that can all interact with one another, seamlessly. No matter what you’re into, you can meet passionate people posting about it on Mastodon!
Join a community and create your profile. Find and and follow fascinating folks and read their posts in an ad-free, chronological timeline. Express yourself with custom emoji, images, GIFs, videos, and audio in 500-character posts. Reply to threads and reblog posts from anyone to share great stuff. Find new accounts to follow and trending hashtags to expand your network.
Mastodon is built with a focus on privacy and safety. Decide whether your posts are shared with your followers, just the people you mention, or the whole world. Content warnings let you hide posts containing sensitive or triggering material until you’re ready to engage with them. Each community has its own guidelines and moderators to keep its members safe, and robust blocking and reporting tools help prevent abuse.
More features:
• Dark Mode: Read posts in light, dark, or true black mode
• Polls: Ask followers for their opinion and tally the votes
• Explore: Trending hashtags and accounts are a tap away
• Notifications: Get notified about new follows, replies, and reblogs
• Sharing: Post directly to Mastodon from any share sheet in any app
• Cuteness: Our mascot is an adorable elephant, and you’ll see them pop up from time to time
Mastodon is a registered nonprofit and development is supported directly by your donations. There’s no advertising, no monetization, and no venture capital, and we plan to keep it that way.
So far I’m happy with the app. It looks really nice, the animations are good, and the features it has work well. But the app still lacks some features from the web version, like post translating, a specific screen for direct messages, a graphical view for alt text, following hashtags, and a few more. I hope these will be coming soon.
Easy account creation. I’m not sure how it was difficult for other people. You fill out the information. It gives you two options resend or open email app. Tap open email app tap the link inside the email and you’re done. Basics. Even though I definitely think this may want me to scream for Google Plus to come back if it really is as complicated on the inside as people say. But they may also be just people that don’t know how to use electronics.
I never received the email verification link and can’t do anything on the app without verifying. It’s been 3 weeks and I’ve tried multiple times and now when I click the button to resend email, it says the token is invalid. The account is frozen and I can’t do anything. I was going to use this for my business but now that account just useless.
Android users: when you sign up, instead of clicking the button to open your email app, I manually navigated to my email and clicked the link. It worked for me. Seems like the issue only occurs if you try to use the built in button to open your email app. Saying 5 stars for now but I will update if that changes.
I thought signing up wouldn’t be a deal on mobile but it truly doesn’t work quite like it should. I’ve resent the verification twice, yet it’s been an hour and the email is not in my inbox or spam folders. The app doesn’t let me go back a page once it’s on the verification screen – had to clear cache and storage and resubmit info to confirm the email is correct. Now it tells me the email is already in use. I’m stuck in a loop without that verification message 🤔
I’ll give a 4 for now because it’s honestly not a bad app, it’s got a lot of potential. But it does have a few bugs. You have to refresh your screen to reflect that your followers/following is updated & it’s a bit annoying. The app also lacks features like a button to draft a post. Overall lots of potential but please update it. I’d like to create lists, maybe have a section specifically for tags, etc. If this became a cross between the best features of twitter and tumblr it’d be awesome
When registering a new account the app gives you 2 options – open your email app or go back. When jumping out to your email app to confirm your email, you can’t get to a main menu in the app. Even after rebooting. This makes the app unusable. I’m going to uninstall and reinstall. *** Update 12/1/22 – uninstalling and reinstalling takes you to a page that only allows the option to sign-up. Log-on option does not work. I’m on Android. In it’s current state, it’s unusable so I’m uninstalling.
Unnecessarily difficult to get started. Barriers to entry. There’s a learning curve. YET excellent community and idea IF you do the work to set it up/figure it out. The developer (who’s had a recent windfall via Patreon) hopefully will put the newfound money towards optimizing the site and recovering from the lackluster reviews. The soul of Mastodon is inherently good, but it’s the details that are lacking.
Not great. There are no dm’s. I cannot find half of the stuff the desk top features on the app. It’s not very intuitive to navigate. The update supposedly allowed to follow hashtags, alas. I didn’t get it I guess, because even after updating twice, I still don’t have the feature… Will update if anything changes. So far, not a fan. The browser version is not letting me log in now. Fantastic.
If you already have an account, it can be confusing to get started. Select log-in, and then when asked to pick a community, you want to enter your existing server (ex.: Dice.camp). You can then log in. Don’t select a random server! Mastodon needs to be more clear on their language. I prefer the desktop app, but it’s nice to have this on my phone so I can check notifs or browse. Looking forward to continued updates.
It’s not a bad app. Got a lot of potential but I occasionally have issues where it will say a list is empty when I know it isn’t. It’s also hard to find accounts. And new content isn’t always available, sometimes content gets recycled. But it is improving, I think it’s worth being patient.
Works pretty good. I appreciate the UI placement once I was in, even though signing up was a bit tough. If you’re stuck on the sign-in/up or just waiting, try deleting the app cache and data then relaunching. Once you’re in, it feels like Twitter, Discord, and Reddit had a 3-way. That’s kinda good.
Can’t get set up. Like many others we aren’t getting the email confirmation and there is no way to get out of that screen. I tried stopping the app from settings and it still won’t get out of that. I thought about reinstalling and trying again but based on the reviews it’s unusably broken. Even the choices you get set up were confusing as well as the handle extension. It’s very sad because we really need a good usable social networking app. Someone please make one!
Overall am impressed with the app. The UI was a little overwhelming at first and some things weren’t clear how to get to – for example, the Explore and Search are combined so if you do a search you don’t see Explore stuff again until you hit the back arrow on the search bar. After spending some time with it, most of what I would want in an app is already here. There are a few bugs that need polished, but dev seems to be responsive in fixing things as they’re reported on github.
Can’t navigate easily between instances like you can in Tusky. You have to sign in & out of each instance manually. Also, having so much of the user interface happening in-browser instead of in-app is awkward & not all the timelines are displayed. You have to minimize the browser pop-up to navigate back to the app each time. I’ll stick with Tusky for the time being. Good to see y’all trying tho.
Really impressed. Has nearly all the functionality that Twitter has, and in some cases allows for more fine-tuning and personal configuration. And since it’s a non-profit operation it isn’t rife with ads constantly trying to find ways to monetize you. The service doesn’t have the critical mass of users that Twitter has (not even close), but hopefully that improves over time.
It’s a solid idea, held back by a horrible UI/UX. First of all, there should be an option to view following/followers of accounts. Secondly, I would like to be able to see all accounts said user follows regardless of the instance they use. In general, the biggest problem is the very unfriendly user interface, as opposed to something very clean like Twitter’s official app. It’s not a bad idea though, I like the decentralized nature. It’s just not as good in execution.
When signing up for a new account on android, you get to a page with two options: open email and resend. I verified my account, but whenever I go back to the mastodon app, it won’t leave that page. It may be because I’m awaiting authorization on the server, but it would be helpful to tell me that like the web interface does.
I downloaded Mastodon as a Twitter replace and I have deleted it within two days. Simply put, it is not at all a very intuitive app. If you want servers that are easier, Reddit and Discord work better and allow you to be on multiple. Mastodon only allows one and it is rather hard to find a server that fits or change after unless you have burner emails at your disposal.
Didn’t get past the first page of sign up options. Seems one has to scroll through long lists of obscurely, unordered server options and choose one or many? – it’s not clear. Really? It needs to be quicker and easier than that.
As other reviews have made clear, feature parity is very poor. (Editing your posts was only just made available December 2022.) That’s the #1 reason to skip this app. But also, search is very janky. I personally wish that the UI for the app would be the same as the mobile website, with an option to shift the top bar and sidebar towards the bottom for ergonomics. Also, clicking on links to posts in other servers redirects you away so you can’t like, boost, or comment. Other clients address this.
Needs to have all of the same functionality as the web interface. Especially Approval Voting style polls. Otherwise pretty good. Known bugs, Pixel 7, Android 13: Google translate fails to launch and translate highlighted text. Push notifications fail after switch from older phone.
Lots of things are missing from mobile web client. Need to go to browser for many things like login, account settings. Unlisted post option is not available. Bug : emoji panel is not opening properly. 👉Suggestion : It would be better to use UI of mobile web client. But with closeable side panel.
It’s time for me to update my review of this App. Well, I’m mightily impressed! The App works very well, I’ve had no issues at all & I’ve been using it for about 5 weeks. Mastodon’s a joy to be part of. Now Twitter’s a nightmare to use, the Mastodon App has become my go to. I just need to find out how & where, I can contribute to the upkeep of the server that I’m on, & to the Mastodon ecosystem ingeneral. Help keep it Musk free!!!
The vision and priorities of the platform are incredible. It’s under a lot of stress from new accounts being created – and of course there are political opponents who want to down-vote it like crazy. So there are some bugs and sub-optimal areas that need work – such as my having written 3 posts that I almost posted but lost before I could submit them. Still, these irritations seem fixable and worth it for all we have to gain by building this community.
Great app so far but The UI could be better. Hopefully some improvements will be made to make it better. Also the functionality of the App at times is just lugging and this is impacting on the new users adoption – Kindly update on sharing to Mastodon also when you compose a toot then move to another App the toot just disappears and you have to start over
Features feel quite limited. The drop-down menu on other profiles has more features on the browser, and when I click an @-handle in a profile bio it opens a browser window to that handle’s profile instead of just opening in the app.
App is shipping broken and is completely unusable. You sign in and it says that server validation fails. The platform itself is very badly designed. Its hard to find new content, find posts based on topics, etc.
This app is better than Twitter’s Glitch Festival. Last night, Twitter couldn’t load images or any of the Tweets in my account. It’s obvious the servers were struggling, considering the journalist bans Musk vacuously made last night. In contrast, Mastodon easily loaded and quickly updated. No issues with the huge influx of traffic last night. The stress test that occured on the platforms last night couldn’t be more telling. Choose Mastodon. News, choose Mastodon, build News Agency Instances.
Pointless. The need to pick a server is weird. They say “just pick one it doesn’t matter” but then you are stuck with it and that community. Great now I can only talk to people in the same server that likes “photography”. It feels like someones pet project with no real goal or purpose figured out yet
Solid app for the most part. Really needs a way to disable the See New Posts message that is displayed way too frequently. The UI could be improved as well.
The ‘official’ app, I think. Seemed the best place to start. It’s good, but not perfect. Doesn’t have all the functionality of the website. The most irritating thing at present? I can’t see to choose basic icons – smiley faces, waving or clapping hands. I can only see to choose the additional icons my instance has chosen.
Promising, but ultimately frustrating. The people I’ve encountered on the platform have been great. My problem is that the platform itself seems really unstable. Joined an instance appropriate to me, had some positive interactions, then I couldn’t access the instance any more. Don’t know if the app glitched, the instance got deleted or I got kicked out for reasons unknown. Just confused by the whole experience.
It was difficult to set up and get going, but once my account was verified my experience with the app is great. Easier on the eyes than Twitter and very organized.
There seems to be a bug where mastodon doesn’t seem to send a confirmation email to my address. Either that or I typed my address wrong and there is no way to check unless you uninstall the app and reinstall.
Updated Review: I was able to better get logged in with the mobile app now. Thank you for looking into this. Original Review: I am not able to use the mobile app. It can’t find the instance I signedup with so I can’t login in and it won’t just let me enter my full handle.
I love the look and feel, so despite there being more fully functional apps out there, I keep coming back to this one – I just enjoy using it more than the others. Getting the Notifications bell to show when there are new notifications would be a first obvious bug fix/upgrade, hint hint. I also have a feeling that the Federated feed (confusingly labelled ‘Posts’) isn’t updating as often as it should. Harder to tell with the Community feed tab. I’m sure the functionality will improve… Right?
Very difficult to use, I don’t even get verification email. How to change server so I get email verification? it feels like you are browsing with slow internet connection. So frustrating.
Clean UI. Nice entry level app for those used to bird site. But where is the access to the Fediverse? Almost impossible to use this to follow others from across multiple instances, which sort of defeats the point and one of the best features of Mastodon. Search sort of works for this, but isn’t great, often fails to find users on other instances.
So complicated to use. If someone has to watch tutorials on how to use social media app then maybe developers are doing something wrong with the app. Also I have to remember on which server I created account. And how can someone call it decentralized if in case server goes down where I created my account I can’t login back to Mastodon and have to create new account.