After 11 months of testing, it launches one of its biggest updates of the year. in a Attributed to CEO and founder Eugen Rochko, the nonprofit detailed its 4.3 release on Tuesday, promising improvements to nearly every aspect of the social media experience.
Perhaps most significantly, Mastodon has overhauled how notifications work. For starters, the platform will now group boosts and favorites so that users aren't bombarded with notifications when one of their posts goes viral. At the same time, Mastodon is introducing new filters to make it easier to ignore notifications from people you don't follow, newly created accounts, and those who send you unsolicited private mentions. With the new feature, you can choose to view those notifications, prevent them from reaching your phone, or send them to a separate inbox to view later.
Separately, Mastodon is introducing a new set of notifications designed to inform users if a server moderator has made a decision that affects their account. Specifically, if a mod takes direct action against your account, you will receive an in-app message saying “you can't miss it.” The platform will also notify users when they lose followers due to moderator decisions and offer the option to export a list of affected accounts.
In addition to those changes, Mastodon has redesigned a few different parts of its app. Starting with the compose window, the company says the new interface makes it easier to rearrange media, as well as view content warnings and word filters.
Elsewhere, Mastodon has updated its web client, adjusting the software's color palette, iconography, and link previews. Utility emails, including those users receive after password resets, have also been revised. On the interface front, Mastodon has reworked the confirmation dialogs to better describe how muting and blocking will affect the user. For example, if you're about to crash a server, the app will detail exactly how many followers you stand to lose with that decision.
On the topic of followers, Mastodon has added a new recommendations carousel that users will see after scrolling through the first post in their feed that is more than four hours old. At the same time, the company has modified the recommendations to make them more relevant to people. To top things off, Mastodon updated the website embeds and made it easier to track the author of a trending news article.
The improvements come after x recently changed the way it works, a move that some have argued has made the platform even less desirable to use. Rochko doesn't mention x specifically – or Meta and Bluesky, for that matter – but notes a general desire to make Mastodon more appealing to everyday users.
“One of (our) ongoing efforts is to make Mastodon easy and enjoyable to use. “We have invested a significant amount of money and time working with professional designers and conducting user testing over the past few years, but we are really stepping up our efforts in 2023,” he wrote. “Mastodon is a fairly large application and our resources are still very limited compared to our corporate competitors, but we have made significant progress in improving the look and feel of Mastodon across the board.”
