Guide: Bluesky
WAFRN is a federated social media platform that connects to the Fediverse and the Atmosphere. This means WAFRN users don't need to choose between networks - you can have both, right now. This guide is designed to help you navigate the ATprotocol side of your WAFRN account, and adjust it to your liking.
If you're unsure if your instance has the integration enabled, ask your admin or check https://join.wafrn.net.
This guide was last updated on October 22th, 2026, corresponding with desktop web build v2026.10.02-DEV.
[Enabling Bluesky] [Migrating an account] [Atmosphere/ATproto] [Bluesky features] [Using other clients] [Disabling, deleting or migrating your account]
Default State
When you first create a WAFRN account, ATproto integration is turned off by default. If you want it, you choose to enable it, and you choose when to enable it.
When disabled, you can still see Bluesky posts through rewoots and search, but you cannot follow any users or interact with any posts. You could quote a Bluesky post, but the quote would not go to Bluesky, since you do not have a presence on Bluesky, so you're really just linking a post.
Enabling Bluesky/ATproto
To turn on ATproto integration, click "Settings" in the sidebar, then click the "Bluesky" submenu.
The first section includes a button that says "Enable Bluesky / Re-enable Bluesky".
The next page is a confirmation dialogue, including important information about what ATproto integration means for you. Your account is not integrated until you enter your current WAFRN password and click "Enable Bluesky" at the bottom of the page.
If you want to read more about what ATproto integration means for you, you can jump to the Managing your Atmosphere account section.
You can also check your.instance.domain/profile/enable-bluesky to review it. Following this link will not automatically enable Bluesky. You can open and close the page at any time without changing your account in any way.
What if I already have a Bluesky account?
You have a couple options. You could decide to just start using the WAFRN-Bluesky account. You could even maintain both accounts separately, if you wanted.
You could also decide it's better to keep those accounts 100% separate, and just keep your current Bluesky account and keep WAFRN Fedi-only.
But, if you want to port over your Bluesky account to your WAFRN account, you will need to go through the migration process. Please see the General Account Migration guide for a summarized guide. A step-by-step guide is being worked on.
Please note that if you migrate in an existing Bluesky account, it will destroy the WAFRN-generated Bluesky account. You don't lose your WAFRN posts, but you can't import them to your migrated Bluesky account.
Managing your Atmosphere account
Bluesky is built on top of an open protocol, the AT Protocol, and is part of a network known as Atmosphere. When you enable the Bluesky/ATproto integration in WAFRN, you can use your account across multiple social apps built on the same network. You use your handle to login into these apps like you would use your email.
Enabling ATproto for your account will create an Atmosphere account on the WAFRN servers and create a Bluesky account record on your repo.
Before enabling the integration, there are a few things you might want to know:
- Only posts marked as public on WAFRN can be published to Bluesky.
- Bluesky posts are visible to everyone, even outside of your followers.
- ATproto records are public, including followings and likes.
- ATproto apps you authorize may create other type of public records on your account.
- Bluesky and other ATproto apps may keep its own copies of your records.
- Anyone can follow the ATproto side of your account, regardless of if you have follow-requests enabled.
- Blocking someone on WAFRN does not guarantee they are blocked on Bluesky or vice-versa.
- Reply permissions and controls are handled by Bluesky and may differ from WAFRN settings.
- Bluesky is operated by a private company. Their policies and features may change.
This guide focuses on the integration with the Bluesky Social App, but it is important that you know that your posts aren't trapped by Bluesky PBC. Each post, like, and follow is a record written on your Atmosphere account, hosted by your WAFRN instance. The majority of our infrastructure works independently of Bluesky, with the exception of custom feeds and Bluesky DMs, and should remain online in case of a Bluesky downtime.
So, what does it really means?
- Your Atmosphere account is the account you use to login in any ATproto app, including Bluesky.
- Posts, follows, and other content is stored on your personal data storage (hosted by your WAFRN instance) and aren't held by Bluesky.
- WAFRN doesn't use the Bluesky infrastructure to publish your posts or to power your dashboard.
- Bluesky is still able to take actions on your account – such as post takedowns, suspensions, and bans – at the AppView level.
- Bluesky can't delete your records, only apply a label that restricts the visibility on apps that use the Bluesky relay.
- Restricted posts and accounts may be accessed on other apps that don't use the official Bluesky relay, like WAFRN, Blacksky and Eurosky.
- Your data is portable: the same way you can bring your Bluesky account to WAFRN, you can move it to a different host at any point. You would lose the native fedi-atproto integration but keep all of the records on your account, like posts and followers.
The email and password associated with your Atmosphere account are the same associated with your WAFRN account, but can be changed via Bluesky in "Settings > Account > Update email / password" or via your Atmosphere Account Dashboard, located in your.pds.domain/account. If you aren't sure of your PDS address, check your home server's documentation or ask your admin.
Profiles on Bluesky
Bluesky has a character limit in profile descriptions, so if you exceed that character limit, your profile will automatically include a link to view it in full on WAFRN.
Your profile photo and banner image will be sent to Bluesky, and will update when you update them on WAFRN. There's an option to disable the synchronization of your profiles, in case you prefer to update them separately.
Posting to Bluesky
Posts with the "Public" or "Article" privacy setting can go to Bluesky. All other post privacy settings - "Unlisted", "This instance only", and "Followers only" - stay on federated platforms only.
You are able to toggle which posts are sent to Bluesky when selecting the privacy setting.
"Direct messages" can be sent to a Bluesky user by tagging them. This feature make requests to the Bluesky API and might not work if Bluesky is down. Bluesky DMs are not end-to-end encrypted.
Photos and videos will go to Bluesky, but Bluesky doesn't support normal .GIF files. WAFRN will automatically convert .GIF files into a short video for Bluesky.
Here are the file formats Bluesky supports:
- JPEG
- PNG
- WEBP
- MP4
- MPEG
- WEBM
- MOV
If you upload more than 4 images to a single post, Bluesky will change to a carousel view.
If you upload more than 10 images to a single post, all the embeds will be replaced by a link to view the post on WAFRN.
If you write more than 300 characters of text in a single post, the first part of the text will be posted to Bluesky, but it will be cut off slightly before the end of the 300 characters and replaced with a link to view the post on WAFRN.
Images are capped at 2000x2000px, and a maximum file size of 1MB. Images over 1MB are converted to a .JPG, and the quality is gradually decreased by 10% until the image is below 1MB.
All of these things only impact the Bluesky view of your post. The post will remain intact on the Fedi side, and can be viewed on your WAFRN profile in full.
Interacting on Bluesky
Once your account has Bluesky integration, you can interact with Bluesky users in the same way you would Fedi users. To find specific people or posts, use WAFRN's Search. You can follow, like, rewoot, reply, and quote to your heart's content.
However, Bluesky users cannot see WAFRN reactions, and unless they're using a special client, they will not be able to see bite notifications. For more information about these functions, see the Interactions guide.
Bluesky posts visible to "Logged in users only", will be shown in full on your feeds on WAFRN. If you want to make your profile restricted to users who are logged in, you can enable this option in Settings > Privacy > Profile Privacy, by checking "Hide profile to users who are not logged in". Please note that this profile privacy setting is limited, Bluesky will not show your account to logged-out users and will ask other apps to do the same; however other apps may not honour this request. All of your Bluesky records are still publicly available through a PDS search. For more information, see the Bluesky Data Privacy FAQ
Please be aware that Bluesky users cannot see Fedi posts, and Fedi users cannot see Bluesky posts, unless they are quoted, or the viewer is bridged. As a WAFRN user with Bluesky enabled, your posts can be seen by both networks, but the posts you rewoot from non-WAFRN servers will be exclusive to their respective network under default conditions. Some Fedi users, and some Bluesky users, may use Bridgy Fed, which allows users from each protocol to interact with users on the other.
Finally, if you have "Manually accept follows" turned on, this setting only applies to followers from Fedi. Because Bluesky has no equivalent feature, Bluesky followers bypass the approval process. If someone follows you who should not follow you, you can block them.
Bluesky custom feeds
WAFRN has partial support for Bluesky custom feeds. You can manage them in "Settings" > "Bluesky" > "Bluesky Feeds" and view them in "Explore" > "FeedName". This feature depends on the Bluesky appview and won't be available when Bluesky is down.
What if I want my ATproto handle to be something special?
That's fine! There are 2 ways of changing it: via a Bluesky client or using your Atmosphere Account dashboard.
To change it via a Bluesky client, all you have to do is log in on Bluesky and change it in your settings, just like you would change it normally. Go to "Settings" > "Account" > "Handle", then, if applicable, click "I have my own domain". Follow the prompts, then save your work. The change will be reflected on your WAFRN profile when it's complete.
To change it via your Atmosphere Account dashboard, go to your.pds.domain/account and log in with your ATproto credentials. Go to "Account" > "Username" and follow the instructions. The change will be reflected on your WAFRN profile when it's complete.
Bridged posts
WAFRN condenses bridged posts into a single post that you can interact with on both protocols. WAFRN users do not need to bridge if their account is already Bluesky-enabled.
WAFRN users will see bridged Fedi and ATproto users on their original platforms most of the time, as WAFRN tries to combine bridged users' profiles and posts. Under certain circumstances, you may catch a glimpse of a bridged handle, but it should not prevent you from interacting normally.
Logging in on Bluesky
There are some cases where you may want to log in to a Bluesky client or other ATproto app. WAFRN gives you full control over the ATproto side of your account.
Go to your ATproto front end of choice and log in. Your "hosting provider", or "server," will vary based on your home WAFRN server. Some WAFRNs try to mirror the style of a Fedi username, so your Atmosphere account might be username.at.server.domain. If you aren't sure, check your home server's documentation, or ask your admin.
You can also use one of the ATproto apps that automatically detect your home server. https://witchsky.app/ will do this for you.
If you don't know your Bluesky username, your full handle should be listed on your WAFRN profile. You can enter that in the "username" box, and apps like Witchsky will figure out the hosting provider for you.
Then enter your WAFRN password. If you changed your WAFRN password since you enabled Bluesky, you'll have to try to remember your old WAFRN password. If you don't remember, use the "Forgot Password" functions to change it.
What if I change my mind later?
The Bluesky settings page include both the option to deactivate and the option to delete your Bluesky account!
Neither deactivating or deleting your Bluesky account affects the WAFRN side of your account. WAFRN still has all your posts, even the ones that went to Bluesky, but you won't have any of your Bluesky followers/followees and you won't be able to interact with Bluesky posts anymore.
Deleting your account also deletes all your PDS records, your entire Atmosphere account. Bluesky and other ATproto apps may keep copies of your data.
You can also migrate to a different ATproto host. The same proccess described on the Account Migration guide to move from Bluesky to WAFRN can be used to move out to a different provider. You will lose the native fedi-ATproto integration provided by WAFRN but keep all your ATproto records.