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How can I migrate my lemmy account to another lemmy instance? (lemm.ee)

submitted 4 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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I'm currently on lemm.ee and I'd like to migrate to lemmy.eco.br, both are using the 0.19.5 backend version.

I remember reading some discussions in the past about being able to migrate instances, is it already possible? Is it being developed? How's the status of this feature?

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

I don't think there is an account migration tool yet.

I am in the same boat: I want to move out of SDF but I can't really because I want to keep the community I moderate and my account's posting history. I mean I could certainly create a new account and pass the moderating rights from the old to the new, but I'd still be starting from scratch posting-history-wise.

So I'm holding off until account migration is finally a thing.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 3 weeks ago (2 children)

Full account migration isn't possible, as that would require rewriting fediverse history.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 3 weeks ago)

Not really. It would only require the new user on the new instance to be able to "own" posts and comments made by the old user on the old instance.

For example, the old user account could transfers its posting and commenting history to the new account (and the new account would be asked to accept the transfer of course).

When it's done, whoever visits the new account, will see posts and comments made from the old account up until the transfer, and the old account's posting and commenting history would be blank.

Then If the old account were to continue posting afterwards for some odd reason, it would build a new posting and commenting history from that point on. Or the transfer could become effective only after the old account is deleted permanently.

I don't know exactly how any of this is implemented, but it would definitely not require monkeying with the actual past posts and comments.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

I’d still be starting from scratch posting-history-wise.

Why is that an issue? Lemmy has no karma, and if you want to keep you "reputation", you can use the same username and picture on both sides, people will recognize you.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

It's not reputation or being recognized, it's having an unbroken record of posts and comments, for myself and for others checking out my profile. I want my old comments and posts ported to my new account and deleted from the old, so that whoever checks my new profile sees all I've posted with all my old accounts.

Or said another way, the only thing that should change when I migrate my account is the @server part of the name and nothing else. And it should be trivially easy to do too. To my knowledge, this is not possible at the moment.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 weeks ago (1 children)

You can achieve that by adding a link to your old profile from the new and vice versa.

To my knowledge, this is not possible at the moment.

Indeed, and probably never going to happen. Even Mastodon do not support actual migration, they just add a redirection to your new profile from the old and vice versa.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Some other fediverse software like hubzilla and sharkey let you migrate posts, so I wouldn't say it'll never happen. I don't think anyone is working on it though, so probably not anytime soon.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 weeks ago

Thanks, I wasn't aware. Microblogs seems to be easier to manage than threads, so it might be more difficult for Lemmy

can import your exported posts from Mastodon and most of its forks, Pleroma / Akkoma, Misskey / Firefish and forks, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, including attachments (threading may not work perfectly, and other people’s replies to your posts may not get imported)

https://docs.joinsharkey.org/docs/comparison/misskey/