Last week, the social network Bluesky surpassed 14 million users. Users seem to come over from Twitter/X in waves – essentially whenever its excessively wealthy and over-impulsive owner does something to make it even worse. If you’re setting yourself up on Bluesky, and want to find the people that you were previously following on Twitter, then Sky Follower Bridge can help you.
Unlike some tools that were around a couple of years ago for finding people on Mastodon, Sky Follower Bridge is a browser extension. This means that it doesn’t use Twitter’s API, as such apps have generally been shut down pretty quickly, and is a clever way of side-stepping this issue. That does, however, mean that you’ll need to use a desktop browser to find your followers. Extensions are available for Chrome and Firefox; I used the Firefox version, but the Chrome extension has been updated more recently.
Finding your follows
Once the extension is installed, you’ll need to go to the page on Twitter/X that lists the accounts you follow, and then you activate the extension by clicking its toolbar button. It’ll then analyse who you are following to see if it can find a corresponding Bluesky account.
Some people will have put their Bluesky usernames in their Twitter/X bios, so Sky Follower Bridge should detect these. It’ll also look for matching names and usernames and suggest Bluesky users on this basis. This does mean that, if you follow someone with quite a common name, such as, oh, I don’t know, ‘Neil Turner’, it may suggest a different user on Bluesky with the same name.
Although I’ve been on Bluesky for just over a year, Sky Follower Bridge found 18 accounts that I used to follow on Twitter who are also on Bluesky. However, not all are active; it seems like quite a few signed up, tried it and then haven’t returned. Still, if you’re making the move off Twitter and want to stay connected with your previous followers, this is a good tool to use. And if you’re not already following me on Bluesky, here’s my profile link.
