ByChristel van der Boom
Cartoon of Mastodon mascot holding a phone with Android logo poking though the "F" in if the red Flipboard logo.

Starting today, anyone who uses Flipboard on Android can connect their Mastodon account and flip through content from the federated social network. With this integration, you’ll see posts from your Mastodon feeds on Flipboard, and you can like, boost and reply to them from within the Flipboard app. You can also add content from Mastodon to your Flipboard Magazines, and vice versa: share content from Flipboard with your followers on Mastodon.

To connect a Mastodon account to Flipboard, get the latest version of the Flipboard app on your phone or tablet (v4.3.9) and follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to settings (tap on gear icon) in your Profile.
  2. Select “Account” and then “Connected Accounts.” 
  3. Tap on “Mastodon” under “Add an Account.”
  4. Add your Mastodon credentials.

Of course, you’ll also need a Mastodon account. If you don’t have one, we can help with that too: follow steps 1 through 3 and then tap on “nope” to request an invite to our Mastodon instance (aka server) Flipboard.social. 

Expansion of Mastodon Features

In the weeks since we launched our integration of Mastodon into Flipboard on iOS, we have added several new capabilities that are available across all mobile platforms.

You can now follow any Mastodon user, hashtag or feed directly from Flipboard. This gives you easy access to Mastodon feeds you really care about, right from your profile, where you find all Mastodon feeds under Connected Accounts. In addition, the most recent posts from your home timeline can now appear in your Flipboard For You feed so you are less likely to miss something. Moreover, feeds for your @mentions, as well as your own Mastodon bookmarks, can be accessed from inside the Flipboard app.  

Screenshot that shows different feeds available on Flipboard for Android, including Home Timeline, Favourites and Mentions.
Mastodon feeds you can access from your Flipboard profile, under Connected Accounts on Android.

In addition to adding a Mastodon feed to the list of things you follow on Flipboard, you can select a separate option to follow feeds directly on Mastodon.

The new integration on Android uses the Mastodon API, but this is just the beginning for Flipboard in the Fediverse. Our vision is to use the ActivityPub protocol to build services that work together across platforms, building a more interconnected internet. We hope you’ll join us and let us know about your experience.

— Christel van der Boom, head of communications, is reading SF Bay Area.