Social Media

Connect Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn for Magpie to publish to, and add X and Instagram to post to yourself.

A team's social accounts are of two kinds. Magpie publishes to Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn at each post's time. For X and Instagram, Magpie prepares each post, reminds the team when its time comes and opens the platform with as much filled in as the platform accepts; the person who posts it marks it as posted.

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Accounts Magpie publishes to

You sign in on the platform itself and approve Magpie's access; Magpie never asks for or stores your password. Connect several accounts on one platform by connecting each in turn. Team admins add, connect and remove accounts, and other members see each account and its state.

Bluesky
Connect with your handle, such as name.bsky.social. Accounts on other servers that use the same protocol also work.
Mastodon
Connect with the server your account is on, such as mastodon.social. Other servers that use the Mastodon API also work, and Magpie uses each server's own character, image and description limits.
LinkedIn
Connects your personal profile. LinkedIn access lasts about two months, and the account shows the date it ends. Reconnect before then to schedule posts after that date.

Connection state and stored access

Each account shows Connected or Reconnect required, which means the platform stopped accepting Magpie's access, such as when it expired or was revoked. Check connection asks the platform at once. When publishing finds an account that needs reconnecting, the post to it fails and the person who connected it receives one email. Reconnect keeps the account's posts and history.

The access a platform gives Magpie is stored encrypted. Disconnect removes it from Magpie: posts waiting to be published to the account will be marked failed, and posts already published stay on the platform.

X and Instagram, added by username

A team admin adds an X or Instagram account by choosing the platform and, optionally, typing the username. Nothing is connected and no password is asked for, so any Instagram account works: personal, Business or Creator.

Each post's copy is checked against the platform's rules. X allows 280 characters as X counts them, with every emoji counted twice and a link as a fixed length, and up to 4 images. Instagram allows 2,200 characters and up to 20 images in one post, needs at least one image, and is not given the post's link.

When a post's time comes

  1. Ready to post

    At the post's time, its X and Instagram copies move to Ready to post, listed first on the Social Media page, while Magpie publishes the Bluesky, Mastodon and LinkedIn copies. A copy stays ready until someone marks it as posted, takes the account off the post or unschedules it; a missed time does not make it fail.

  2. The reminder

    Magpie emails the steps for each platform with a Post to button for each account. The button opens that account's posting page without signing in for 7 days, and what is done on that page is recorded as the person emailed.

  3. Who is reminded

    Reminder goes to, on each post, chooses the person who scheduled it or everyone who can publish. A team admin sets the default in Social Media settings.

  4. Posting straight away

    Choosing Now sends the same email within about a minute, so a post scheduled on a computer can be posted from a phone. A post that goes only to X and Instagram can be posted at once from its posting page.

The posting page on a phone or a computer

Each copy has a posting page. How to post it lists the steps for that platform on that device, above the exact text and the images in order.

Instagram on a phone
Share to Instagram copies the caption and opens the phone's share sheet with every image, so several images arrive as one post, in order. Choose Feed or Story, then paste the caption: Instagram does not accept text from other apps.
X on a phone
The share sheet gives X the images and the text. The text is copied too, in case X leaves it out.
X on a computer
Open X with this text opens X's compose window with the text and link filled in. Copy the first image copies it to paste in, and Download images saves them all, numbered in order.
Instagram on a computer
Post from my phone shows a code that opens the same posting page on your phone, without signing in, for 30 minutes. Email me the link sends it instead.
Image descriptions
X and Instagram do not receive descriptions from other apps, so Copy description copies each image's description to paste into its alt text on the platform.

Marking a copy as posted

Mark as posted records who posted it and when, and the account shows Posted by with that person's name. The post's address on the platform can be added afterwards, and Mark as not posted undoes it. When someone shares the post, opens X, downloads its images or makes a phone link, the post shows that they started posting it, so others can check the platform before posting it again.

The people who can schedule and publish can post: team admins, or everyone who can edit when Social Media settings allow it.

Add your team's accounts.

Create a Magpie account, open Social Media and add the accounts your team posts to under Accounts.

Create account