toot/docs/usage.md

Usage

Running toot displays a list of available commands.

Running toot <command> -h shows the documentation for the given command.

Below is an overview of some common scenarios.

Authentication

Before tooting, you need to log into a Mastodon instance.

toot login

You will be redirected to your Mastodon instance to log in and authorize toot to access your account, and will be given an authorization code in return which you need to enter to log in.

The application and user access tokens will be saved in the configuration file located at ~/.config/toot/config.json.

Using multiple accounts

It's possible to be logged into multiple accounts at the same time. Just repeat the login process for another instance. You can see all logged in accounts by running toot auth. The currently active account will have an ACTIVE flag next to it.

To switch accounts, use toot activate. Alternatively, most commands accept a --using option which can be used to specify the account you wish to use just that one time.

Finally you can logout from an account by using toot logout. This will remove the stored access tokens for that account.

Post a status

The simplest action is posting a status.

toot post "hello there"

You can also pipe in the status text:

echo "Text to post" | toot post
cat post.txt | toot post
toot post < post.txt

If no status text is given, you will be prompted to enter some:

$ toot post
Write or paste your toot. Press Ctrl-D to post it.

Finally, you can launch your favourite editor:

toot post --editor vim

Define your editor preference in the EDITOR environment variable, then you don't need to specify it explicitly:

export EDITOR=vim
toot post --editor

Attachments

You can attach media to your status. Mastodon supports images, video and audio files. For details on supported formats see Mastodon docs on attachments.

It is encouraged to add a plain-text description to the attached media for accessibility purposes by adding a --description option.

To attach an image:

toot post "hello media" --media path/to/image.png --description "Cool image"

You can attach upto 4 attachments by giving multiple --media and --description options:

toot post "hello media" \
  --media path/to/image1.png --description "First image" \
  --media path/to/image2.png --description "Second image" \
  --media path/to/image3.png --description "Third image" \
  --media path/to/image4.png --description "Fourth image"

The order of options is not relevant, except that the first given media will be matched to the first given description and so on.

If the media is sensitive, mark it as such and people will need to click to show it. This affects all attachments.

toot post "naughty pics ahoy" --media nsfw.png --sensitive

View timeline

View what's on your home timeline:

toot timeline

Timeline takes various options:

toot timeline --public          # public timeline
toot timeline --public --local  # public timeline, only this instance
toot timeline --tag photo       # posts tagged with #photo
toot timeline --count 5         # fetch 5 toots (max 20)
toot timeline --once            # don't prompt to fetch more toots

Add --help to see all the options.

Status actions

The timeline lists the status ID at the bottom of each toot. Using that status you can do various actions to it, e.g.:

toot favourite 123456
toot reblog 123456

If it's your own status you can also delete pin or delete it:

toot pin 123456
toot delete 123456

Account actions

Find a user by their name or account name:

toot search "name surname"
toot search @someone
toot search someone@someplace.social

Once found, follow them:

toot follow someone@someplace.social

If you get bored of them:

toot mute someone@someplace.social
toot block someone@someplace.social
toot unfollow someone@someplace.social