Many are turning to Lemmy as a viable Reddit alternative. Here is how to use your existing Mastodon account with Lemmy.
• 3 min read
By now most of you have probably heard about Reddit blackout/exodus and you may also have heard about Lemmy, a Fediverse alternative to Reddit, which many have flocked to.
So like many people right now, I wanted to check out Lemmy as a viable alternative to Reddit, and also, like many existing Mastodon users I'm thinking:
Do I need to create a new Lemmy account on another instance, or can I just use my existing Mastodon account to do everything on Lemmy?
As an avid Fediverse user, my primary identity is on a Mastodon server. Since Lemmy uses ActivityPub, I thought that maybe I can just cross post into Lemmy (just like I would cross post into another Mastodon instance) despite it being a quite different type of app (basically like Fediverse Reddit vs Fediverse Twitter).
It turns out... It works!!
Yes, it's possible to upvote, post, reply and follow anything on Lemmy, through my existing Mastodon account, using the same cross posting method you would between different Mastodon instances, with a few notes:
Mastodon Favorites are counted as Lemmy Upvotes (however Mastodon Boosts do NOT seem to count).
Creating a Mastodon post while mentioning a Lemmy community/topic will create a discussion post within the Lemmy Community, with the first line of the Mastodon post becoming the discussion post's title.
No it is not possible nor necessary to log into another server to post into it. Remember, just like cross-posting between different Mastodon servers, you do not need to log into another server using your existing Mastodon account, and the same applies to Lemmy servers. It can take some time to get your head around this, as we are normally used to siloed apps where you actually need to log into the other app using your existing account to do anything. This is the Fediverse, so it works little differently, and actually its simpler once you get used to it. Since all these apps are built on the same protocol (ActivityPub), they can all talk to each other directly, although the information is presented in different ways in different apps.
Performing Actions on Lemmy via Mastodon
Here are some longer instructions for various actions:
Browsing Lemmy groups: works without logging in, directly on the Lemmy instance.
Replying to a Lemmy post/comment: Get the direct link to the Lemmy post/comment using the link button in Lemmy, paste it into your logged in Mastodon instance search bar, and then press Reply and post your reply.
Upvote a post or comment: I again get the direct link to the Lemmy discussion or comment and paste into my Mastodon instance search bar, then I click the Mastodon favorite button (note that this might not be as private as using an actual Lemmy account to upvote).
Follow a Lemmy account, post or group: again just get its Lemmy link, paste into your Mastodon search field and follow.
Post a new discussion to a community: you simply create a new post in Mastodon, and @ mention the Lemmy group you want to post into, where the first line will become the title of the post. An example. The easiest way is to again paste the link to the group in Mastodon, and go to that groups profile and click the 3 dots menu and click Mention.
A Mastodon post I made on the left, and how it shows up in the Lemmy instance on the right. Note my Favorite shows up as an Upvote in Lemmy.
Limitations:
Downvotes are possible on most Lemmy servers, however I have yet to find a way to place a downvote via Mastodon.
A bit Clunky? This should improve soon...
Currently it requires copy and pasting links, the same as manually cross-posting between Mastodon instances when you don't have a browser extension like FediAct installed. Extensions like FediAct embed buttons into foreign Mastodon pages which invisibly automates the copy/pasting for a completely seemless experience across instances.
Rest assured, given the latest spike in interest in Lemmy, it is likely the community will respond with a similar browser extension which will eliminate the manual copy/paste steps by embedding buttons into Lemmy pages. Stay tuned, as I will update this post once I find an extension to simply things.
