It feels like X, the “everything app”, has been in a bit of a free fall ever since Elon Musk purchased it. Effectively removing the block button, adding priority replies for those who pay, and subscription revenue woes are just some of the reasons why people appear to be leaving for Bluesky, a popular competitor. If you want to join them or just want to diversify your use of social media, there’s a pretty good tool out there to help you move over.
Sky Follower Bridge is a Chrome extension that goes through your following or followers list and automatically compiles them. This allows you to manually follow anyone you want to carry over (and stop following those you don’t). It’s super simple and only requires that you log into Bluesky and have a public following list.
From my experience using this extension, it seems very solid, though it can struggle with big following lists and can sometimes make mistakes identifying accounts. For instance, my username on X is @JamesMBentley. I hear you say “James, you never use your middle name” and to that, I say yes, but I didn’t know any other way of identifying myself and most uses of my name were already taken.
However, I managed to get to Bluesky more than a year ago and rather egotistically took the “James Bentley” username, as is my birthright. In doing so, this extension has struggled to pick me up, and I had to set the same profile picture and signpost my X handle in order to get it to pick me up on Bluesky.
If you have moved over to Bluesky and don’t want to lose too many of your followers, use the same user handle or give the extension a reason to believe you are the same account. There have been many competitors to X since Elon Musk’s takeover, such as Threads and Mastodon, but Bluesky is the closest I’ve gotten to the classic Twitter experience.
This is because it is basically just Twitter, with a similar colour scheme and interaction systems. You can’t react to DMs with emojis but you can actually block accounts and it puts your following list first. I feel like I’m actually interacting with people, and not being shoved the latest viral post endlessly.
My time on X has felt a little closer to TikTok recently–an addictive string of posts designed to keep me interacting with e-celebrities and rage bait. Though I haven’t quite left X behind, I see the appeal of Bluesky immediately, and this extension makes the move just a little easier.