As Twitter is (far too) slowly falling apart and more and more people are looking for alternatives, Bluesky is enjoying a surge in popularity at the moment.

One neat little feature is that you can use your own domain as your handle on Bluesky. In a way, this is the perfect handle for this new era of decentralized social media. Your personal domain is part of your digital identity on the independent Web and uniquely yours. Your domain is owned by you and is under your control, which also makes impersonation much harder. And if you ever decide to switch servers, you can always take your domain with you.

If you don’t own a custom domain yet, Bluesky lets you purchase and manage domains directly through them. But of course, you can also register your domain at any other service, like one from the directory of green hosting providers by the Green Web Foundation.

But chances are that you already own a personal domain. Setting it as your Bluesky handle is then quick and straightforward. All you have to do is set a DNS record for your domain.

1. Open the left side menu on Bluesky by clicking your profile picture thumbnail or the menu button in the upper left on the home screen. Click “Settings” and scroll down to the “Advanced” section. Click “Change handle.”
   

   

2. Next, click “I have my own domain.”
3. On the following screen, enter your domain name and copy the domain value which you will enter in a new TXT record for your domain in a few seconds.

   

4. Now, go your domain registrar and find the DNS settings for your domain. This will, of course, vary depending on the registrar you bought your domain from. In my case (German hosting provider all-inkl.com), it looks like this:

   

   Add a new TXT record with `_atproto` as the (sub)domain, TXT as the type, and enter the domain value you copied before in the value (or data) field.
5. Wait a few seconds (or minutes) so that the new DNS settings are in effect and the servers on the Web know about this change. Then go back to Bluesky and click “Verify DNS Record“.

   

6. Et voilà! Your domain is now your handle. 🎉

In case you want to dig a little deeper, the Bluesky team has published much more detailed instructions on their blog.

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