Tested with Mastodon 4.5.x

Mastodon 4.3.0 was released just a few hours ago, and many instances have already started updating.

During my tests, I noticed that some things have changed in the core files, and the procedures normally described for changing the character limit of posts no longer work. So, I decided to write this short blog post to document the updated procedure.

Increasing or Modifying the Character Limit

At BSD Cafe, the character limit is set to 5000 (up from the 500 originally allowed by Mastodon). No one has ever used all the available characters, but I prefer that the limit be decided by the poster, not by the platform.

To customize this limit, you need to modify two files:

• live/app/javascript/mastodon/features/compose/containers/compose_form_container.js - find the line that contains:

maxChars: state.getIn(['server', 'server', 'configuration', 'statuses', 'max_characters'], 500),

and change 500 to your desired value.

Next, you need to modify another file: live/app/validators/status_length_validator.rb - find the line that contains:

MAX_CHARS = 500

and change it accordingly.

Once done, run the following command:

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile

and restart the Mastodon services to apply the changes.

Increasing or Modifying the Number of Poll Options

Edit the file live/app/validators/poll_options_validator.rb and modify the line:

MAX_OPTIONS = 4

to the value you want. There are also other customizable options in this file.

Again, once done, run the following command:

RAILS_ENV=production bundle exec rails assets:precompile

and restart the Mastodon services to apply the changes.

Changes might not be immediately visible because of caching (browser, web server, etc.), but once these caches expire, the new limits will take effect.

These modifications might be overridden by subsequent Mastodon updates, so be sure to check after every update that they are still valid.