Follow Back

What it does

Follow Back lists the people who follow you that you do not follow yet, newest follower first. It leaves out the accounts you are least likely to want, such as labeled accounts, blocks, and accounts that never posted, so the list you see is worth going through. You pick who to follow and follow them in one run that you can undo.

Each complete load of your followers here also feeds Follower Changes, which compares it with the last load to show who followed and unfollowed you.

Before you start

Sign in. Your followers are read through your own Bluesky server, so the page needs your account. See Signing In.
Allow time on a large account. Followers arrive 100 at a time. Above 50,000 followers, the page asks how much to load first.
Keep the tab open for long work. Loads and runs only progress while a BskyKit tab is open. They keep going when you move to another BskyKit page in the same tab.

Step by step

Open Follow Back and sign in if asked. The first visit loads your followers on its own. Later visits show the list kept in this browser at once, with “Loaded N min ago”.
If you have more than 50,000 followers, choose how to start (see Large accounts), then choose Start loading. The list is usable while it loads.
Check the Leave out chips. All four are on by default; turn one off to see those accounts too. Each chip shows how many followers it matches.
Look through the rows. Each shows the account, how many posts it has, and badges such as Labeled or Never posted. Choose a row’s name to open the profile on Bluesky.
Tick the accounts to follow, or use Select → Select all shown.
Choose Follow selected in the side panel. The panel shows how many follows, blocks, and mutes you made in the last 24 hours, and how many this run adds.
Confirm in the dialog, which reads “Follow N accounts?”. A large run first offers a choice; see Limits.
The run writes in the side panel, with written, skipped, and to go. Accounts you follow drop out of the list. When it finishes, choose Undo if you change your mind, or Dismiss.

Options

Leave out

All four chips are on by default. An account a chip leaves out is hidden and taken out of your selection.

Labeled: accounts with a moderation label, such as spam or impersonation, or an adult-content label they set themselves.
Blocked: accounts you block or that block you. Neither of you can see the other’s posts.
Never posted: accounts with no posts at all, often bots or abandoned accounts.
Invalid handle: accounts whose handle no longer verifies, because its DNS or HTTPS record is gone or points to another account. These rows show the name or DID instead.

Select and Export

Select → Select all shown, Select none, or Invert shown.
Export downloads the selected accounts as CSV (follow-back.csv) or JSON (follow-back.json), with the DID, handle, display name, and the badges each account carries. It is unavailable until you select an account.

Large accounts

Above 50,000 followers, the first load says how many followers you have, how long loading all of them takes at least, and how much space it uses in this browser. Then you choose:

Newest 50,000 followers (recommended): ready sooner. Most people worth following back are recent followers, and you can load more at any time.
All followers: takes longer and uses more space. You can stop at any point and keep what has loaded.

While it loads, the page shows “Loading followers: N of M · about X left”. Choose Stop and keep what is loaded to stop early. A list loaded in part says “Showing your newest N of M followers.” with Load 50,000 more and Load all. If you close the tab mid-load, loading carries on from where it stopped next time.

Refresh and Clear

Refresh loads your followers again. The current list stays on screen until the new one is complete; Stop refreshing keeps the current list.
Clear drops the loaded list, resets the Leave out chips to their defaults, and clears the selection. The page then shows Load your followers and waits until you choose it. Clear never cancels a queued or running run, and it keeps the Follower Changes record.

What gets changed

A follow run creates one follow record in your account for each account you selected, on your own Bluesky server. Nothing else changes.

Where the data comes from:

Your followers, and whether you follow or block each one, are read through your own Bluesky server.
Post counts are read from Bluesky’s public API.

What stays on this device: the loaded list, until you clear it, refresh it, or sign out; the follower snapshot that Follower Changes uses; and a record of each run in History. See Data on Your Device.

Undo

Undo a follow run with Undo on the finished run in the side panel, or later from History. Undo deletes the follows the run created and nothing else. See History & Undo.

Limits

Follow pace: your server allows about 1,666 follows an hour and 11,666 a day.
Daily suggestion: BskyKit suggests at most 1,000 follows, unfollows, blocks, and mutes a day, counted over the last 24 hours, because large follow runs can get an account labeled as spam. The Last 24 hours meter in the side panel shows where you stand.
Large runs: a run that crosses the suggestion, or takes more than a day, opens a choice titled “Following N accounts takes at least D days”. You can:
- Follow the newest … now: follows the newest followers in your selection, as many as today’s suggestion leaves room for, and keeps the rest selected for another day. If you already reached 1,000 in the last 24 hours, this choice is unavailable.
- Start the whole run: it pauses at Bluesky’s limits and continues while the tab is open, or when you come back.
Loading: in a test, 300,000 followers loaded in about 13 minutes. Real accounts may load more slowly. A list uses about 10 MB of browser storage per 100,000 followers.
Just followed: accounts you followed in the last 10 minutes stay out of the list while Bluesky catches up.

See Limits & Pacing.

Troubleshooting

“Could not load your followers”

The load stopped on an error. If some followers had loaded, the notice says how many are kept and offers Try again from there; otherwise choose Try again.

“Bluesky asked us to slow down.”

Your Bluesky server limits how fast one connection can read. The load waits and carries on by itself; the line counts down the seconds.

“Out of space”

This browser has no room left for the list. The followers loaded so far are kept. Free up space on the device, then load more.

Someone you just followed back still shows

The list updates when a run finishes. If an account you followed elsewhere, such as in the Bluesky app, still appears, choose Refresh.

“Everyone is left out by the filters”

Every remaining follower matches a Leave out chip. Turn a chip off to see those accounts.