If you’ve been posting on Mastodon and want to bring those posts into your WordPress site, the new importer makes that possible. It’s a beta feature, but it already handles the basics well—and helps you keep more of your content in one place.
Keep What You Create
Social platforms can come and go—or just change in ways you didn’t expect. Maybe your Mastodon server shuts down, or the people running it move on. When that happens, it’s easy to lose your old posts and the history you’ve built up.
The Mastodon importer helps you take control by bringing your posts into your WordPress site, where you own the content and can decide how it’s stored, shared, and presented. You’re not just copying things over—you’re giving your content a more permanent home.
Getting Started
The import process is user-friendly and follows a clear workflow:
- Log into your Mastodon account and go to Preferences > Import and Export.
- Request your archive and download the ZIP file when it’s ready.
- Open the WordPress Mastodon Importer and upload your file.
- Choose an author for your imported posts and decide whether to include media files or just the text.
Once uploaded, you can assign imported posts to a specific author and choose whether to include image attachments with your posts or just import the text content.
The importer processes your posts from the Mastodon outbox.json file, filtering to include only public posts while skipping boosts. Each post maintains its original publication date, content, and media. If your posts include images, video, or audio, the importer brings those in too and adds them to the post automatically.
Your Posts, Rebuilt
The importer transforms your Mastodon content into a rich block editor experience. Your posts convert into proper paragraph blocks while maintaining their original formatting. Images are organized into gallery blocks with captions intact, while videos and audio files transform into their respective media blocks for optimal playback.
Hashtags from your Mastodon posts are converted to WordPress tags, preserving your content’s organizational structure and discoverability.
When a post is part of a conversation, the importer adds a reply block at the beginning of your post that embeds the original post you were responding to. This keeps the conversation flow clear and provides context for your response.
All these blocks remain fully editable after import, so you can tweak layouts or adjust media presentation as needed.
For classic editor users, the importer keeps things simple with standard shortcodes for media. It’s not as fancy as the block version, but it should work reliably with your existing setup.
It’s a Beta—Your Feedback Counts
The Mastodon importer is still in beta, and there’s more work ahead—especially when it comes to large archives and better handling of replies. We’ve followed WordPress importer best practices, but real-world use is where things really get tested.
Tried the importer? Let us know how it went—what worked, what didn’t, and what you’d love to see next. Your feedback helps shape where we take it from here.
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