There is a lot going on in the world right now, and it may be overwhelming at times.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

There is a lot going on in the world right now, and it may be overwhelming at times. If you want to follow the news but you also need some way of taking mental health breaks, Mastodon's "Lists" feature might help.

Lists lets you move the accounts you follow into several separate timelines. You could for example create a "News" timeline and a "Non-News" timeline, then switch between them when you want to.

More info on how to use Lists in the guide at https://fedi.tips/how-to-use-the-lists-feature-on-mastodon/

#FediTips #Mastodon

[orionkidder@mas.to]

@FediTips Is there a way to do this in batches? The single-account-at-a-time method is very time consuming. It's what makes me not do it even though, god yes, I would love to make a "doesn't kill my soul" feed for my own account.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@OrionKidder

The quickest method is to log into your server's website and then go to your list of follows on your profile page.

You can then click ⋯ on each account and tick the list(s) you want to add it to, then close the window and move onto the next account.

[orionkidder@mas.to]

@FediTips Exactly. It's three clicks for every individual account I want to add. It would be great to have a list of followers and tick boxes next to each one so that I can move them as a batch.

Anyway, that function doesn't exist. I get you. The advice to create non-traumatizing lists is still good.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@OrionKidder

There's a sort of way of doing it in batches, if you go to the list's own page in the web interface.

Click on the arrows icon at the top right of the list, then "Edit List", then "Manage List Members", then enter A in the search box. You'll then get a list of matches which you can add to the list by just clicking "Add" next to each one you want. When you've finished the results for A move on to searching for B etc.

[orionkidder@mas.to]

@FediTips That's a pretty good workaround! Keeps it manageable, letter by letter. Nice.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

p.s. Apologies for the wrong guide link, it's corrected now.

[hpod16@eupolicy.social]

@FediTips Oh I need this!
Follow-ups
Can I follow hashtags within the lists or just people?
Are lists public?
Will people get a notification when they are added to a list?

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@hpod16

You currently can't follow hashtags in lists, but it is a very very requested feature.

Lists are private, they're just timelines for your own use.

You can only add people to lists if you're following them already, so they don't get a notification about lists as they already got a notification when you first followed them.

[hpod16@eupolicy.social]

@FediTips
Thanks for all the follow ups! 💜

[5cifigirl@starbase80.wtf]

@FediTips

I love lists! 😎

Small comment on your article though:

You mention that we can create as many lists as we want. But I have gotten carried away, and found a limit! 😂

I have 50 lists, and if I try to add more I get this error:

“422 Validation failed: You have reached the maximum number of lists”

I am using the web interface. I don't know if this might vary by server?

[darth_hideout@mas.to]

@FediTips I don't think this works with tags. I don't follow specific accounts for subjects of interest, so I guess I'm out of luck.

[5cifigirl@starbase80.wtf]

@darth_hideout

No, it doesn't work for hashtags. But they do mention that it is a highly requested feature, so that could change! 😎

@FediTips

[darth_hideout@mas.to]

@5ciFiGirl @FediTips

I think it was the IceCubes app that had it at one point. But it was only local on each device. Would be nice if it made it into the core of #Mastodon.

[5cifigirl@starbase80.wtf]

@darth_hideout @FediTips

Theres also ... Whats it called, advanced web view? With the columns? I think you can make a column with some tags?

[darth_hideout@mas.to]

@5ciFiGirl @FediTips

You can pin tags, but it doesn't scale.

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@5ciFiGirl @darth_hideout

For anyone comfortable with using Github, they can vote for following tags on lists by giving a thumbs up at https://github.com/mastodon/mastodon/issues/7692

[feditips@social.growyourown.services]

@5ciFiGirl

Thanks! 🙏 I've updated the article to correct this.

[the_grue@digitalcourage.social]

@FediTips Sorry, but the usefulness is quite limited if the lists contain of accounts.
The same account can post cat pictures and depressing news. That's why I don't use them.