How to create a Mastodon account?

Want to try the Mastodon adventure but as soon as you create an account you feel lost? Do not panic, we explain everything in this tutorial!

Unlike Twitter or almost any social network, when you sign up to Mastodon, you are not actually signing up to Mastodon. Indeed, the service is not based on a single infrastructure managed by a single entity. On Mastodon, you register on an instance (a server), hosted by one or more administrators. Thus, if the account creation itself is ultimately not much more complicated than elsewhere, it still requires a few additional steps (which may also vary slightly from one server to another). Nothing very complex however, but we still advise you to carry out the following steps from a computer and not a mobile for better comfort.

How to create a Mastodon account?

1. First, go to the site of the instance you want to join (and step 3. of this tutorial) or, if you don’t know, go to https://joinmastodon.org .

2. After clicking on “Create an account” in the middle of the site, you are now on the home page of the servers. To find out how to choose a mastodon server, do not hesitate to consult our dedicated tutorial. For this example, we will more or less randomly choose the server “ludosphere.fr”. Note that some servers allow you to create an account directly, while others, often full or almost full, offer instead to request the right to create an account. In our example, click on “Request an account” in the “ludosphere.fr” block.

3. Welcome to the Mastodon instance of ludosphere.fr. Right click on “Create an account”.

4. The specific rules to be respected on this server are then displayed. Click on “Accept” at the bottom.

5. All that remains is to fill in your information (public name, username, email and password). Some servers, like here, may ask for some additional information, like your reason for registering here rather than elsewhere. Check the classic consent box, then create your account or join the waiting list using the blue button at the bottom.

And now, you are ready (or almost) to use Mastodon. Note that it is therefore possible to create accounts on several servers, but also to migrate an account from one server to another so as not to lose its subscribers and subscriptions.