Bluesky Gets New Updates

Bluesky revealed three notification-enhancing upgrades on Monday that let users customize their experience, clear out their notification centre, and cut down on irrelevant and unnecessary alerts.

You can now receive activity notifications for particular accounts, and you can change your notification preferences to choose which alerts you want to receive. Users have the option, for example, to only receive notifications when specific accounts respond to their messages.

The ability to enable notifications for individual accounts was one feature that Bluesky had been without until recently, but Activity Notifications are now available. You can toggle the bell symbol on their profile page to receive notifications whenever The Verge, ESPN, or a friend posts. You can also choose to receive notifications for only new posts or those that include replies.

On other platforms, particularly Twitter, where news breakers have been able to update their audiences minute by minute, it’s the kind of feature one can get used to, making it simpler to follow intriguing subjects or emerging stories.

That doubles for sports, and Bluesky has stated that increasing its visibility in sports-related conversations is “a top priority.” Shams Charania, an ESPN reporter and Woj heir, hasn’t yet added his coverage of free agency on the platform (to go along with X, Threads, and the ESPN app), but perhaps he will now that it offers push notifications for particular accounts.

Users of Bluesky can now create alerts for a variety of activities, such as new followers, likes, replies, mentions, quotes, and reposts, by going to Settings and selecting Notifications. Additionally, there is a “Everything Else” option that includes basic messages like verification alerts or when someone joins via a Starter Pack.

Every option can be deactivated or disabled completely or tailored to apply solely to the accounts they follow or to everyone.

Furthermore, users can now get alerts when someone likes or reposts their shared work. People who mostly reshare posts instead of producing original content will find this feature particularly helpful since it increases their sense of engagement.

According to Bluesky, the “priority notifications” feature that was previously in existence has been changed. Users were able to filter notifications so they only saw updates from accounts they followed thanks to that functionality. Users must modify response, mention, and quotation alerts to “people you follow only” in order to get the same outcome.

Users can opt to receive notifications whenever an account publishes something new or responds to a message using the new activity notification function, which is similar to those on sites like X and Threads.

To activate this function, go to a profile and touch the bell icon next to the Follow button. This will allow you to be notified each time a new post is published by that account. For reply notifications, there is a separate and an additional option.

If a user no longer wants to receive updates, they can modify their activity notifications in settings and remove accounts from their list.

Users might not be able to enable activity notifications for all the accounts they want to follow because accounts have the option to completely block this service. Additionally, account owners have the option to allow activity notifications for just the users they follow.

It may now alert users if someone likes or reposts something they’ve republished, which is another little update.

Of course, the changes that went live on Monday also have something for you if you’re having trouble with too many notifications. The number of granular settings to choose whether to receive notifications regarding reports, likes, new followers, or other activity, as well as whether to receive them from activity by anybody, no one, or only those you follow, has skyrocketed. A blog post claims that the straightforward “priority notifications” button that was previously accessible has been moved to the new configuration, meaning that users who had it enabled will continue to only receive alerts from users they follow.