When you move your Mastodon account to a Hometown instance, the behavior of local-only posts changes in ways that can confuse new arrivals. Hometown is a fork of Mastodon that adds a local-only posting feature, letting you share content that never federates to other servers. If you migrate an existing Mastodon account to a Hometown instance, your old public posts remain public and federated, but new local-only posts behave differently than standard Mastodon unlisted or followers-only posts. This article explains exactly how local-only posts work after migration, what happens to your old content, and which settings you must adjust to avoid accidental federation.
Key Takeaways: Local-Only Post Behavior After Migration to Hometown
- Local-only toggle in composer: Selecting this option prevents the post from being sent to any remote server, including followers on other instances.
- Old public posts remain federated: Migration does not retroactively change the visibility of your existing timeline content.
- Follower migration does not copy local-only posts: The Move account process transfers followers and some profile data, but local-only posts are not included in the export.
What Local-Only Posts Are and How Hometown Differs from Mastodon
Standard Mastodon offers four post visibility levels: public, unlisted, followers-only, and direct. All four levels federate to remote servers when someone from that server follows you or boosts your post. Hometown adds a fifth option called local-only. A local-only post appears only on the local instance timeline and in the profiles of users on that same server. Remote instances never receive the post, even if a remote user follows you or boosts it.
This difference matters after migration because the local-only feature is not a Mastodon standard. When you move your account to a Hometown instance, the new server recognizes the local-only toggle. But your old Mastodon instance and other remote servers do not understand this visibility level. They treat any post you mark as local-only as if it never existed. Remote followers see nothing.
How the Local-Only Toggle Appears in the Composer
On a Hometown instance, the compose box shows a small globe icon next to the post button. Clicking the icon toggles between public and local-only. When local-only is active, the icon changes to a house or a lock symbol, depending on the theme. The post button also displays a tooltip that reads “Post to local timeline only.” No additional menu or setting is needed.
What Happens to Old Posts During Migration
When you initiate a Mastodon account migration from Preferences > Account > Move from a different account, the process transfers your followers and your profile display name, bio, and avatar. Your old posts remain on the old server. They are not copied to the new Hometown instance. The old profile redirects visitors to the new account, but the posts stay behind. Any public or unlisted posts on the old server continue to federate normally. Local-only posts from the old server, if you had any, are not part of the migration at all.
Steps to Verify Local-Only Post Behavior After Migration
After you complete the migration to a Hometown instance, follow these steps to confirm that local-only posts are working as intended and that no content leaks to remote servers.
- Send a test local-only post
Open the compose box. Click the globe icon until it changes to a house or lock. Type a test message such as “This is a local-only test.” Click Post. Immediately switch to a different browser or a private window and view your profile while logged out. The test post should be visible only when you are logged into the Hometown instance. On any other server or while logged out, the post should not appear. - Check the local timeline
Navigate to the local timeline on your Hometown instance. The URL is usually /public/local. Your test post should appear there. Remote users cannot access this URL directly. If the post appears on the federated timeline at /public, you have not set the visibility to local-only. - Ask a friend on a different instance to verify
Ask a trusted contact on a different Mastodon server to search for your new account and look at your profile. They should see your public posts from the old account, but they should not see any local-only posts you made after migration. If they see the local-only post, the visibility was set to public or unlisted by mistake. - Confirm that old posts are not modified
Log into your old account on the original server. The old profile redirect shows a banner and a link to your new account. Your old posts remain unchanged. No local-only flag is retroactively applied to them. If you want to hide old content, you must delete those posts manually from the old account before starting the migration.
Common Mistakes and Limitations with Local-Only Posts After Migration
Local-Only Posts Not Visible to New Followers on Other Instances
After migration, your followers from the old server are now following you on the Hometown instance. But local-only posts never reach them. If you want to share content with all followers regardless of their home server, you must use followers-only visibility instead of local-only. Followers-only posts are encrypted per-follower and federate to each follower’s home server. Local-only posts do not federate at all.
Accidentally Posting Public Instead of Local-Only
The local-only toggle resets to public after each post. If you forget to click the globe icon before posting, your post goes out as public. This is a common mistake right after migration because users assume the toggle stays on. Always check the icon before pressing Post. You can also use a browser extension or user script that forces the toggle to stay local-only, but Hometown does not offer a permanent default setting for this.
Local-Only Posts Are Not Included in Data Export
When you export your Mastodon data from Preferences > Import and export > Data export, the generated archive includes your statuses in JSON format. Local-only posts are included in this export only if you are on a Hometown instance. If you later move to a standard Mastodon instance, the local-only posts will not be importable because standard Mastodon does not recognize the visibility flag. Keep a separate backup of those posts if you need them later.
Mastodon vs Hometown: Post Visibility Comparison
| Item | Standard Mastodon | Hometown |
|---|---|---|
| Public posts | Federates to all remote servers | Federates to all remote servers |
| Unlisted posts | Federates but not on local timeline | Federates but not on local timeline |
| Followers-only posts | Federates only to followers on any server | Federates only to followers on any server |
| Local-only posts | Not available | Stays on local instance only; never federates |
| Post visibility after migration | Old posts remain on old server with original visibility | Old posts remain on old server; new local-only posts not visible to remote followers |
Conclusion
You can now use local-only posts on Hometown after migration with full understanding of how they behave. Always toggle the visibility icon before posting to avoid accidental federation. Remember that local-only posts do not reach followers on other instances, so use followers-only visibility for content that must reach everyone. For sensitive or instance-specific discussions, local-only posts give you a reliable way to keep content confined to your Hometown server without relying on trust in remote moderators.