MastodonWe’re ready to show you a new feature coming in Mastodon 4.6 - Collections. These are a way for people on Mastodon to curate and share bundles of accounts that they’d recommend to others, to help find connections and grow their network more quickly.
Eugen RochkoIn a new blog post, @imanijoy provides a deeper dive into the design process for Collections, and explains what we’ve included (and things that are left out) for the first release. We’ll be enabling this feature on mastodon.social next week, and rolling it out more widely in Mastodon 4.6 very soon. We’re excited to hear what you think!
https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/04/designing-collections/
Julian Fietkau@Mastodon Speaking as a contributor of @fedidevs which currently hosts Mastodon “starter packs” at https://fedidevs.com/starter-packs/
We're working on interoperability with Mastodon Collections and will use the same technical mechanisms in the future, but completion of this work is months away. We endorse people migrating their Fedidevs starter packs to Mastodon Collections wherever that makes sense.
We were involved with the backend tech behind Mastodon Collections. No competition and no bad blood! 🙂
@Mastodon In the long term, @fedidevs will most likely focus on capabilities outside of the design of Mastodon Collections: longer lists, curation by multiple owners, etc.
Smaller packs more personal in scope might make sense to be moved to a Mastodon Collection. We'll leave it up to everyone to decide which service fits their needs better.
The safety features mentioned in the post (be notified when you are added, ability to remove yourself) will also be provided by our implementation.
Joan of Contention 😷
Dusk to Don 
@clickhere @julian @Mastodon @fedidevs
Seriously! Thank you all!!
Florian Kromer
Magenta RocksMy one request is to keep my profile out of a collection - full stop. I do not want anyone to be able to add me. It is private for a reason. Bluesky does not have private profiles and being added to a collection or 'starter pack' there is a nightmare. My profile is set to approve followers and I do not want to have to deal with unwanted requests because I was added to a collection. Thanks!
This appears to have been considered, but I want to see it clearly in my settings.
gudenau@MagentaRocks @Mastodon @imanijoy The blog post says that if you don't want to be in it, just exclude your account from the aggregation stuff. It's an existing setting that they're going to be adding this to which makes the most sense to me.
rakoo
Thomas (le retour de la revanche)@[email protected]
How do I opt out if I'm not on Mastodon ?
Yup, same question here.
@@gudenau @@MagentaRocks @@Mastodon @@imanijoy
How do I opt out if I'm not on Mastodon ?
Yup, same question here.
@@gudenau @@MagentaRocks @@Mastodon @@imanijoy
ImaniGreat question. This is up to your server and software. If it supports collections, it should provide you with a similar way to opt out; if it does not support the feature, your account will not be able to be added to a collection on another server.
Niko Trimmel@rakoo
You can not even opt in if you're not on Mastodon. Only Mastodon accounts can be included in collections, no other fedi software accounts.
@nitrml @gudenau @MagentaRocks @imanijoy @Mastodon ah, great, another Mastodon-specific feature, exactly what we need
Renaud Chaput@rakoo The post above is incorrect: any account on a server that supports FeaturedCollections (as described by our FEP draft here: https://github.com/mastodon/featured_collections) can be added to a collection. It will require this account to approve it before it's added.
So either your Fediverse server does not support collections and you can not be added, or it supports collections and will offer you a way for you to decide if you want to be added
FinchHaven sfba"My one request is to keep my profile out of a collection - full stop. I do not want anyone to be able to add me."
I second this
Will there be a clear and immediate way to opt out of this new Mastodon "Feature"?
The Mastodon obsession with onboarding massive numbers of newcomers as quickly as possible is pretty...
...undignified
Exactly how fast and how large does @Mastodon dot Social -- currently at some 288,028 Active Users -- need to grow?
And no, please stop
This is about Masto Social growth
The official party line that this is for all Mastodon instances anywhere is put to lie by following the comments / discussions at Mastodon Github -- particularly those discussions that are silenced as violations of the Github TOA by the official Hall Monitor
Where does it all end?
Anywhere?
Who decided Mastodon needs to conquer the entire "Fediverse"?
[ ] Feature profile and posts in discovery algorithms
--> Recommended <--
"Your public posts and profile may be featured or recommended in various areas of Mastodon and your profile may be suggested to other users."
Now cleared, and thus "Off"
Interesting to note that it was both "Recommended" and defaulted to "On"
This isn't about onboarding as many users as quickly as possible, but rather giving a better onboarding experience to users who do find us. Retention and a better user experience, not acquisition at all costs. Thanks!
@imanijoy @FinchHaven @Mastodon
Agree. When I started on bluesky, the starter packs were helpful to find people. Keep in mind, bluesky has a lot more public users. For example, reporters & publications. The user base here is smaller and spread across instances. This feature makes sense for public type of profiles - like reporters. But for individuals like me, it makes no sense to put them in a collection. However, bsky has lists so you don't have to follow every account. So much easier.
Jürgen Hubert@FinchHaven @MagentaRocks @Mastodon @imanijoy
Aren't other Fediverse systems free to implement their own discovery functions? 🧐
Or heck, maybe they can implement something that is compatible with the Mastodon approach - I don't know. I just find it strange to fault Mastodon for implementing new functions.
Alexander Käßner@Mastodon @imanijoy I highly appreciate your usual care and moving in slow/small steps. I know that this is a rare thing these days, but I feel like this is a solid approach in general.
Either way, looking forward to see this in production! 
Just recently thought about who I could add to my follower list.
@alexkaessner Thanks for the kind words! @Mastodon
Petra van Cronenburg@alexkaessner This is also what I like very much: that more organic and sustainble growth - plus the open communication with the users!
@Mastodon @imanijoy I think that adding a "you followed this account from this feature" might be handy for these. That way when a collection is updated and someone gets removed that you followed from that collection you could get a notification, sort of like when you boost a toot that got edited later. That would also remove ambiguity caused by following a person then a collection with that person for such features.
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Stomata
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Rafa Font 🌻 🇪🇺 🏀
your auntifa liza 🇵🇷 🦛 🦦
webhat
trainguyrom@blogdiva @Mastodon @imanijoy this was my first thought as well, it should probably default to "ask me every time" before adding a given user to a collection (with of course options to opt out and opt in to inclusion in collections), and probably include the collection name/info in the follower request/notification if the new follower is following via a collection.
Probably should also be easy for a user to see a full list of what collections they've been included in and to remove themselves from a collection if desired, maybe even including a message sent to the collection owner when they do so?
I'm just thinking through all of the potential abuse scenarios and how to best mitigate them without completely gutting functionality
●
That Hacker Girl@trainguyrom @blogdiva @Mastodon @imanijoy Also want to give my strong support for these considerations.
I am really looking forward to using this for making collections of bands, distros, and labels! But full enthusiastic consent is the standard I'd really like to aim for.
Jon
Jordi (Tubal Hippy)
nicole mikołajczyk 🔜 sesja linuksowa ➡️ piwo ➡️ gpnimagine you follow all accounts in a Collection, but then, some of the accounts are removed from the Collection. Do you expect to be able to bulk unfollow all of the accounts you previously followed from that Collection, even if they no longer exist there?
It's all about whether you decide to label the button 'Follow all' or 'Subscribe'.