---
title: Using the network features
description: Follow and talk to anyone from any server.
menu:
  docs:
    weight: 40
    parent: user
---

## Browsing Content in Live Feeds {#timelines}

{{< figure src="assets/timeline.png" width="70%" caption="Posts from other servers being streamed into the Live Feed" >}}

To allow you to discover potentially interesting content, Mastodon provides a way to browse all public posts. There is no global shared state between all servers, so there is no way to browse _all_ public posts. When you browse **Live Feeds > Other Servers**, you see public posts from across the fediverse. Your server shows posts it knows about through [various](#fetching-replies) [methods](#search). Most posts come from accounts that other users on your server follow.

You can also filter the Live Feeds to view only public posts created on your server.

## Interacting with Posts {#actions}

{{< figure src="assets/status.png" width="70%" caption="An expanded view can be loaded by clicking a status in the timeline" >}}

You can perform quick actions on a post directly from the timeline, or you can click on the post to load an expanded view that shows extra information, such as a full timestamp, interaction counts, and threaded replies, if any. The following actions can be performed on a post:

* **Reply** to a post by clicking the arrow icon. Your post will show up in the thread below the post you are replying to.
* **Boost** a post by clicking the cycled-arrow icon. The post will be reshared on your profile.
* **Quote** a post by choosing this option from the **Boost** button menu. [Learn more about Quote posts](../quote-posts).
* **Favourite** a post by clicking the star icon. The post will be added to your favourites list, and a favourite notification will be delivered to its author.
* **Bookmark** a post by clicking the ribbon icon. The post will be privately added to your bookmarks list without generating a notification.
* Access a **menu** of additional options by clicking the ellipsis icon.

### Fetching Replies {#fetching-replies}

When a status is expanded[^expanded], [if enabled]({{< ref "/admin/config#fetch-all-replies" >}}), your server will attempt to fetch any replies that it does not already know about from other servers. This process checks each server in the conversation thread to gather any missing replies, which may take some time, especially for posts with many replies or when viewing a post for the first time on your server. Try refreshing the page after a few moments if you suspect you aren't seeing all replies.[^retrigger]

Some replies won't be fetched. These include followers-only posts,private mentions, and posts from servers that [require authorization]({{< ref "/admin/config#authorized-fetch" >}}). The only exception is if you or someone on your server already follows the author.

By [searching](#search) for a post and then expanding it, you can effectively "import" a tree of replies to your instance, helping you and others on your server meet new people and other fediverse creatures!

[^expanded]: "Expanded" in the sense used above, meaning clicking on it to display the detailed view, not e.g. expanding content warnings or unfiltering posts.

[^retrigger]: Refreshing the page will not retrigger a fetch within some cooldown period, so don't worry about overdoing it!

## Notifications {#notifications}

{{< figure src="assets/notifications.png" width="70%" caption="Notifications column with grouping feature enabled" >}}

When other people interact with you or your posts, you will receive a notification depending on the type of the event. Your notifications column allows you to view all notifications in the same stream, or to filter for specific types of notifications:

* **Mentions:** received when someone has mentioned you in a post.
* **Favourites:** received when someone has favourited one of your posts.
* **Boosts:** received when someone has boosted one of your posts.
* **Polls:** Received when a poll that you have voted in or created has ended.
* **Statuses:** Received when a user you have enabled notifications for posts a status.
* **Follows:** Received when someone has followed your profile.

When unread notifications are present, a checkmark will appear in the column header. Clicking this checkmark will mark notifications as read.

## Following Profiles {#follow}

{{< figure src="assets/profile.png" width="70%" caption="Profile card with the Follow button shown" >}}

When you see someone in your app's interface (e.g. the web interface on your home server, or your mobile app), you can simply click "follow." It works the same way whether they're on your server or another server.

If you come across someone’s public profile hosted on a different server and you're not in your own app's interface, there’s an obstacle: That server sees you as just another anonymous visitor. Not to worry! You can copy the URL of that profile, or of one of their posts, and then paste that URL into the search function.

If you are visiting a public page on another Mastodon site, see [Using Mastodon outside of your site](../external/#interact).

## Enabling Notifications {#bell}

{{< figure src="assets/bell.png" width="70%" caption="An example of a profile that you are following" >}}

If you are following someone, you also have the option to receive a notification every time they post. To opt into this functionality, click the bell icon.

## Search {#search}

{{< figure src="assets/search.png" width="50%" caption="The search function with modifier options exposed, see the section on prefixes below for description" >}}

Mastodon's basic search allows logged-in users to find posts containing a specific hashtag, or to load a user or status directly if they know the URL or address. Searching for a term will show profiles whose username or display name contains that term, as well as hashtags that match or contain that term. Searching for a remote post or account's full URL will cause the server to fetch it if it is not already in the database so it can be viewed locally.

{{< figure src="assets/direct-url.png" width="70%" caption="An example of a post being loaded directly by its URL" >}}

{{< figure src="assets/search-accounts.png" width="70%" caption="An example of results when searching for &quot;arstechnica&quot; including an account validated by the domain" >}}

{{< figure src="assets/search-hashtags.png" width="70%" caption="An example of hashtags returned when searching for &quot;friday&quot;" >}}

Admins may optionally install full-text search. Mastodon’s full-text search allows logged-in users to find results from their own posts, their favourites, their bookmarks, and their mentions. Full-text search is limited for safety reasons. You can't search for any text across the entire database. This prevents people from searching for controversial terms to find and harass others.

The following operators are supported:

* **"exact phrases"** will try to find the term inside the quote marks. This allows looking only for direct matches, such as `"look at my cluckers"` to find posts explicitly telling you to look at someone's cluckers.
* **-exclude** will exclude the term prepended by a minus sign. This allows filtering out certain terms, such as `animals -cats` to find posts about animals without posts about cats.
* **+include** will include the term after the plus sign. This allows searching for multiple terms that must be included, such as `cat +dog` to find posts about both cats and dogs.

The following `prefix:value` pairs are also supported:

* `has:` (`media`, `poll`, `embed`) - posts that contain the specified attachment type
* `is:` (`reply`, `sensitive`) - posts that are either a reply or marked sensitive.
* `language:` (`{language_code}`) - posts made in a specific language, indicated by its [ISO 639-1 language code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ISO_639_language_codes)
* `from:` (`@{username}`, `@{username}@{domain}`, `me`) - posts from a specified author
* `before:` (`{date}`) - posts created before an ISO8601 formatted date, e.g. "`2025-03-01`". If the account has a timezone set, searches using their local timezone - otherwise in UTC.
* `after:` (`{date}`) - posts created after an ISO8601 formatted date
* `during:` (`{date}`) - posts created during an ISO8601 formatted date
* `in:` (`library`, `public`) - `library` is the collection of posts that you have interacted with in some way: favourited, reblogged, bookmarked, etc. `public` is the global full text search index. The default is to search both, if this option is omitted.

Each can be used in combination with a text search, for example to find all posts from yourself about cryptids, you could search for `from:me "cryptids"`.

Prefixes can be combined, though they are combined with `AND`, so e.g. one can't search for all posts from multiple languages.

Prefixes can be negated with `-` as with string queries, so one can search for posts from anyone else about cryptids like `-from:me "cryptids"`.

## Private Mentions {#private}

{{< figure src="assets/dm-column.png" width="70%" caption="A list of conversations containing private mentions" >}}

In Mastodon, private mentions are just posts that have the "mention only" visibility selected. Visibility can be selected per-post, which allows changing the privacy level later in a thread. The private mentions column currently shows a list of all conversations containing a mention only post. Clicking on a conversation will load the associated thread.

## List Timelines {#lists}

Lists are subsets of your home timeline. You can create a list, give it a name, and add users that you follow to that list.

{{< figure src="assets/lists.png" width="70%" caption="A list of lists" >}}

Opening a list will load that list's timeline. List timelines contain only posts by members of that list, as well as replies to you or to other members of the list. This can be changed to show replies to all people you follow, or to no one.

## Syndication Feeds {#syndication}

Every account and tag page provide an RSS feed for syndication onto other platforms. Those feeds are auto-discoverable from the account and tag pages.

## Translation

When a post is in a language other than what your account is set to understand, a "Translate" button will appear next to the post content. Clicking this button issues a request to translate the content to the server, and will replace that content with translated results. This feature requires the server to have configured support for a translation service, and so may not be available on all servers.
