Bluesky’s new notification updates make it easier to filter noise
With new controls for alerts and activity notifications, Bluesky users can now better manage who they hear from and when.
Bluesky has been beefing up its offerings for a while now. It almost felt like the service had gone silent, but now its users are getting new updates as it announces a much-needed overhaul to its notifications system.
The social platform is introducing three major improvements designed to help users personalize alerts, cut down on spammy pings, and stay in the loop with accounts that actually matter to them.
The highlight of the rollout is a new “Activity Notifications” feature that lets you receive alerts from specific accounts like journalists, favorite creators, or your close friends. All you have to do is visit a profile and tap the bell icon to be notified whenever they post. You can also customize whether you get notified just for new posts or for replies too. This is a feature longtime Twitter (now X) users will instantly recognize and probably appreciate, especially as Bluesky tries to build itself into a credible news and conversation hub.
Ogbonda Chivumnovu
Alongside that, there are deeper customization options tucked into the settings. Now, users can fine-tune notifications for replies, mentions, likes, quotes, reposts, new followers, and more. Want to be notified only when someone you follow replies to you? Done. Want to turn off notifications for reposts completely? That’s there too. Even “Everything Else,” like when someone joins via your invite or gets verified, can be toggled on or off.
These updates also replace the old “priority notifications” setting, which simply limited alerts to people you followed. If you still want that behavior, you’ll now need to manually adjust reply, mention, and quote notifications to “people you follow only.”
And if you're someone who mostly reshapes content rather than posting original stuff, Bluesky now alerts you when someone likes or reposts something you reposted, a subtle addition, but one that helps foster a bit more engagement.
Bluesky is clearly taking notes from rivals like Threads and X, which have long offered granular control over notifications. But while Threads has surged past 150 million users, Bluesky’s momentum has slowed. After a buzzy rise late last year, it now hovers at around 34 million active users. Respectable, but lagging behind. These new updates may not reverse that trend overnight, but they do show the platform is still listening, tweaking, and growing.
Ogbonda Chivumnovu
