Moving to your own server: a checklist

Migration involves signing away your current server's ability to update your DID. Bluesky's own documentation is blunt about it: if something goes wrong, you can be permanently locked out of your account, and Bluesky cannot recover it for you.

This tool does not automate migration, deliberately. Handing a one-click button for an irreversible cryptographic operation to someone who has not read the documentation would be irresponsible. What it does is make sure you have a complete copy of everything before you begin.

• Your repository — every post, like and follow — as a CAR file imported into the new server.
• Your blobs, which have to be listed and transferred one by one.
• Your preferences.
• Your identity, by updating the DID document to point at the new server. This is the step that cannot be undone.

1. 1Export your repository and keep the .car file somewhere safe.
2. 2Download your media pack. Blob transfer is the step most likely to be incomplete, and having your own copy makes it recoverable.
3. 3Save a readable archive too — Markdown or HTML — so you can confirm afterwards that everything actually made it.
4. 4Have your new server running and tested before starting the migration, not during it.
5. 5Read the official account migration guide end to end. All of it.

Plenty of people who look into self-hosting actually want the reassurance of holding their own copy. If that is you, an archive with media gets you there in minutes, with no risk of losing your account.