Merge Lists

Open Merge Lists →

What it does

Merge Lists adds the members of one list or Starter Pack to one of your own lists. It compares the two first, so accounts already on your list are skipped and nobody is added twice.

• Add to is the list that receives the members. It must be one of your lists.
• Members from is where the members come from: any public list or Starter Pack, yours or anyone’s.

When the source is one of your own lists and everyone on it is now on the target, Merge Lists offers to delete the source as a separate, optional step. That turns two of your lists into one.

Before you start

• Sign in with your Bluesky account. See Signing In.
• You need at least one list of your own to add to. Create one in the Starter Pack Converter if you have none.
• For the source, have its link ready: a bsky.app list or Starter Pack link, a go.bsky.app short link, or an at:// address. For one of your own lists you can type its name instead.

Step by step

1. Open Merge Lists and sign in if asked.
2. In Add to, choose the list that receives the members.
3. In Members from, paste the source’s link and choose Load (or press Enter). To use one of your own lists, type part of its name and pick it; it loads at once.
4. The source appears under From: its name (linked to Bluesky), List or Starter Pack, its creator, and how many accounts it holds. If you have not chosen Add to yet, the page says Choose the list to add them to.
5. A summary says who will be added, such as 72 accounts from “Rust and Rustaceans” are not on “Book Club” yet. 10 accounts already there are skipped. The accounts to add are listed below it.
6. Choose Add 72 accounts (the number matches the summary) in the side column.
7. Confirm with Add 72 accounts in Add 72 accounts to Book Club?. The run starts, or waits behind runs already in the queue. Its progress shows above the button.
8. When everyone on the source is on the target, the summary reads Everyone on “Old list” is on “Book Club”.
9. Optional, only when the source is one of your own lists: under Delete “Old list”?, choose Delete Old list…, then Delete the list in the confirmation.

Options

Add to

A menu of your lists, curation and moderation, with each one’s kind and size. When the source is one of your own lists, it is left out of this menu, so you cannot merge a list into itself.

Members from

Takes one link, as typed. Typing a name (any text without a /) suggests up to eight of your lists. The Clear button inside the box drops the source and keeps Add to as chosen. Loading the same link again reads it fresh.

Clear

Clear under the boxes resets both Add to and Members from, and what loaded.

Delete the source list

This step shows only when all of these are true:

• the source is a list in your own account, not a Starter Pack and not someone else’s list;
• everyone on it is on the target;
• no run adding to the target is still queued or writing.

Delete Old list… first reads the list and its entries from your server, so undo can bring them back. The confirmation, Delete Old list?, says how many entries go with it and that the accounts themselves aren’t touched.

What gets changed

• Add creates one list entry (app.bsky.graph.listitem record) on the target list for each account added, on your own Bluesky server. Nothing else on the target changes.
• Delete the list deletes every entry of the source list, then the list record itself, from your server. The accounts are not touched.
• The source and the target’s members are read from Bluesky’s public API (AppView). For the delete step, the source list and its entries are read from your own server.
• Nothing is kept on this device apart from the run in History. The boxes and the loaded lists stay while you browse in the same tab.

Undo

• Undo an add from History: it deletes the entries the run created. History shows the run as added to the list, with From and the source’s name.
• Undo a delete from History: it creates the list again with the same name, description, and members. Bluesky gives the restored list a new address, so old links to it stop working, and anyone who subscribed to it needs the new one. An avatar your server no longer holds is left out.

See History & Undo.

Limits

• Accounts hidden by Bluesky’s moderation are never added. The summary counts them, such as 10 accounts already there and 1 account hidden by Bluesky moderation are skipped.
• Each entry is a create, which costs three write points, so your server allows about 1,666 entries an hour. Above that, the confirmation says how long the run takes; it carries on by itself while a BskyKit tab is open. See Limits & Pacing.
• Adding to a list has no daily suggestion; it does not count toward the 1,000 a day suggested for follows and blocks.
• Members load 100 at a time from Bluesky. Large lists take longer to load.

Troubleshooting

“Paste a bsky.app list or Starter Pack link, or choose one of your lists.”

The text in Members from is not a link Merge Lists can read. Copy the address from the list or Starter Pack page on bsky.app. Profile and post links do not work.

“Could not load the lists” with “List not found”

The list was deleted, or the link has a typo. Open it on bsky.app to check it still exists.

“Choose two different lists.”

The link points to the same list as Add to. Choose another target, or another source.

Add 0 accounts is greyed out

Everyone on the source is already on the target, apart from any accounts hidden by Bluesky moderation. There is nothing left to add.

“A run adding to this list is in the queue.”

A run adding to the same target is waiting or writing. Wait for it to finish, then add again; the summary updates as the run ends.

The delete step does not appear

It only shows for a source that is one of your own lists, once everyone on it is on the target. It never shows for a Starter Pack or someone else’s list.