Mastodon Account Antennas Setup for Keyword-Based Inbox

You want Mastodon to automatically collect posts containing specific keywords without endlessly scrolling the federated timeline. The Antennas feature, available on Mastodon 4.0 and later, creates a dedicated live feed that filters public posts by your chosen terms, hashtags, or accounts. This article explains how to set up Antennas, configure their scope and delivery options, and avoid common mistakes that cause missed or irrelevant results.

What Mastodon Antennas Do and What You Need Before Setting Them Up

Antennas are a notification-level filter that watches incoming public posts across your chosen scope. When a post matches one of your defined keywords or hashtags, Mastodon adds it to a dedicated column in your home timeline. You can also receive push notifications for those matches. This feature differs from saved searches because it runs continuously in the background rather than requiring you to manually search each time.

Before you start, confirm that your Mastodon instance runs version 4.0 or newer. You can check this by opening the Preferences menu and looking for the Antennas entry under Notifications. If you do not see it, your instance administrator may need to upgrade the server software. You also need a web browser or the official Mastodon mobile app version 4.0 or later. Antennas do not work on third-party clients such as Tusky or Fedilab because those apps have not implemented the feature yet.

Each antenna can monitor the local timeline, the federated timeline, a specific list you have already created, or a single public timeline. You cannot use Antennas to scan direct messages or private posts. The feature only sees public posts that have already reached your instance. This means if a remote instance blocks yours, posts from that instance will not appear in any antenna, even if they match your keywords.

Steps to Create and Configure a Mastodon Antenna for Keyword Monitoring

Follow these steps to set up your first Antenna. You can repeat the process to create multiple antennas for different topics, projects, or monitoring goals.

1. Open the Antennas Settings Page
   Click the gear icon in the top-right corner of the Mastodon web interface to open Preferences. In the left sidebar, click Notifications, then click Antennas. On mobile, tap your profile avatar, tap Preferences, then Notifications, then Antennas.
2. Click the Add New Antenna Button
   On the Antennas page, click the Add new antenna button. A form appears with fields for title, scope, keywords, and notification settings.
3. Enter a Descriptive Antenna Title
   Type a name that helps you identify the antenna later, such as “Product Launch Monitoring” or “Tech News Alerts”. This name appears only to you in the Antennas list and in the column header.
4. Set the Antenna Scope
   Choose one of these options from the Scope dropdown:

   – Local: Scans only posts from users on your instance. Use this to watch internal discussions.
   – Federated: Scans all public posts that your instance has received from any connected server. This is the broadest scope and catches the most matches.
   – List: Scans only posts from accounts that belong to a specific list you have already created. You must select a list from the second dropdown that appears.
   – Public: Scans the public timeline of your instance. This scope is similar to Local but excludes any posts from users you follow.

5. Add Keywords and Hashtags
   In the Keywords field, type the words or phrases you want to match. Separate multiple terms with commas. Mastodon treats each comma-separated term as an OR condition. For example, typing linux, open source, ubuntu matches any post containing at least one of those words. In the Hashtags field, enter hashtags without the # symbol, separated by commas. You can fill both fields at the same time; a post must match at least one keyword OR one hashtag to appear.
6. Enable or Disable Push Notifications
   Toggle the Notify switch if you want Mastodon to send you a push notification each time a matching post appears. Use this setting sparingly for high-priority keywords to avoid notification overload. For broad monitoring, leave the switch off and check the antenna column manually.
7. Save the Antenna
   Click the Save button at the bottom of the form. Mastodon immediately activates the antenna and begins scanning new posts. A new column with your antenna title appears in your home timeline. You can rearrange the column by dragging it to your preferred position.

Common Antenna Setup Mistakes and How to Fix Them

Antenna Shows No Results Even Though Keywords Are Correct

This usually happens because the scope is too restrictive. If you set the scope to Local but the keyword appears only in posts from remote instances, the antenna will remain empty. Switch the scope to Federated to widen the search. Another cause is that the keyword contains a typo or uses an uncommon variant. Check that the keyword matches the exact text used in posts. Antennas perform case-insensitive matching, so Linux and linux both work.

Antenna Shows Too Many Irrelevant Posts

Broad keywords like news or update generate a high volume of noise. Narrow your keywords by adding more specific terms. For example, replace update with Windows 11 update or Mastodon update. You can also use the List scope to restrict results to accounts you trust. Create a list of relevant users first, then set the antenna to scan only that list.

Notifications Arrive Too Frequently or Not at All

If push notifications overwhelm you, go back to the Antennas settings page, edit the antenna, and turn off the Notify toggle. You can also mute the antenna column temporarily by right-clicking the column header and selecting Mute. If notifications do not arrive at all, check that your browser or mobile device has granted notification permissions to Mastodon. On the web, look for the bell icon in the top bar and confirm that it shows a red badge. On mobile, go to your device system settings and verify that the Mastodon app has notification access enabled.

Mastodon Antennas vs Saved Searches: Feature Comparison

Item	Antennas	Saved Searches
Purpose	Continuous real-time monitoring of public posts	One-time manual search with history
Scope control	Local, Federated, List, or Public timeline	All public posts visible to you
Notification support	Yes, optional push notifications	No notifications
Column in timeline	Dedicated live column	No column, only search results page
Keyword OR logic	Yes, comma-separated terms	Yes, but results are not live
Requires instance version	Mastodon 4.0 or later	All versions

You can now create multiple Antennas to track different topics without cluttering your main timeline. Start with one antenna for a high-priority keyword, monitor its output for a few days, then adjust the scope or keywords as needed. For advanced use, combine an antenna with a list that contains accounts from competing instances or industry news bots. This setup gives you a focused inbox that surfaces only the posts that matter to your workflow.