Mastodon Account ‘Approve Followers’ Workflow: How to Manage

If you run a Mastodon account that receives unwanted or spam follow requests, the built-in Approve Followers feature gives you manual control over who joins your follower list. This setting is part of the Mastodon privacy options and is available on all standard instances. When enabled, every new follow request requires your explicit approval before the requester appears in your followers count or sees your non-public posts. This article explains how to turn on follower approval, how to review and act on pending requests, and what happens to requests you ignore or reject.

What the Approve Followers Feature Does

The Approve Followers feature is a privacy control that changes how Mastodon handles new follow requests. By default, any Mastodon user can follow a public account without the account owner intervening. When you enable approve followers, your account switches to a manual approval mode. Every new follow attempt becomes a pending request that sits in your Follow requests queue until you accept or reject it.

This feature is especially useful for accounts that post sensitive content, receive high volumes of unsolicited follows, or want to maintain a curated follower list. It works with both public and locked accounts. A locked account already hides your posts from non-followers, but adding approval gives you an extra gate before anyone can see your locked posts.

There are no prerequisites to use this feature. It is available on every Mastodon instance running version 3.0 or newer. You do not need admin privileges or a special role. The setting is purely per-account and does not affect how your posts federate to other instances.

Steps to Enable and Manage Follower Approval

Follow these steps to turn on the approval workflow and handle incoming follow requests.

1. Open your Preferences
   Log in to your Mastodon instance in a web browser. Click the gear icon in the right sidebar or navigate directly to Preferences from the menu under your avatar.
2. Go to Profile settings
   In the Preferences panel, click Profile from the left navigation menu. This section controls your display name, bio, avatar, and privacy options.
3. Enable Require follow requests
   Scroll down to the Privacy subsection. Check the box labeled Require follow requests. A confirmation dialog may appear. Click Save changes at the bottom of the page. Your account now requires manual approval for all new followers.
4. Review pending follow requests
   After enabling the feature, go to your main profile page. Click the Follow requests tab located between your bio and your posts. This tab appears only when you have at least one pending request. It shows a list of users who have requested to follow you.
5. Approve or reject each request
   For each request, you see two buttons: Approve and Reject. Click Approve to add the user to your followers. The user receives a notification that you accepted their request. Click Reject to deny the request. The user is not notified of the rejection. They simply see their follow request as pending indefinitely on their end.
6. Handle multiple requests
   If you have many pending requests, you can approve or reject them one by one. There is no bulk action option. Each decision is permanent unless the user sends a new request.

Common Issues and Limitations of Follower Approval

Follow Requests Tab Does Not Appear

If you enabled Require follow requests but do not see the Follow requests tab on your profile, it means no one has requested to follow you yet. The tab hides automatically when the queue is empty. To test the feature, ask a friend from a different Mastodon instance to follow you. The tab should appear immediately after they send the request.

Approved Followers Still Cannot See Your Posts

This issue occurs when your account is set to Locked and you approved a user, but the user remains unable to view your posts. The cause is usually a federation delay. Mastodon servers propagate follow approvals asynchronously. Wait up to 15 minutes. If the problem persists, ask the user to unfollow and send a new request. Alternatively, check if the user is blocked or muted in your account settings.

Rejected Users Keep Sending New Requests

Rejecting a follow request does not block the user. They can send another request immediately. To stop repeated requests, block the user. Go to the user’s profile, click the three-dot menu, and select Block. Blocking prevents the user from following you or viewing your profile entirely. Unblocking them later resets the block but does not auto-approve them.

Follower Approval Does Not Work on Third-Party Apps

Some third-party Mastodon clients, especially older ones, do not display the Follow requests tab or the approval buttons. If you primarily use a mobile app, open your instance in a mobile web browser instead. The web interface fully supports the approval workflow. Most modern clients like Tusky and Mammoth have added support, but check the app’s documentation if you cannot find the feature.

Follower Approval vs Locked Account: Key Differences

Item	Require Follow Requests (Approval)	Locked Account
Default post visibility	Posts are public unless you set them otherwise	Posts are visible only to followers by default
Follow mechanism	Anyone can request; you must approve	Anyone can request; you must approve
Profile visibility	Profile and bio are visible to everyone	Profile and bio are visible to everyone
Use case	Curate followers while keeping posts public	Keep all posts private to approved followers

You can combine both settings. Enable Lock account in Preferences > Profile, then also check Require follow requests. This gives you the strictest privacy: new users must request to follow, and only approved users can see your locked posts.

Now you can control exactly who follows you on Mastodon. Start by enabling Require follow requests in your Profile preferences. Check the Follow requests tab regularly to clear pending requests. For persistent unwanted requests, use the block function instead of repeatedly rejecting the same user. If you manage a high-traffic account, consider setting up an auto-approve rule through a third-party bot, though this is not supported natively.