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Flashes this year launched an Instagram alternative built on top of the Bluesky social network. Now available on the App Store, the app offers a different way to browse the visual posts on Bluesky. Instead of viewing them in a timeline-like feed, similar to X, the app draws inspiration from photo-based social networks, like Instagram.
The app, built by Berlin-based developer Sebastian Vogelsang, runs on the same underlying protocol that powers Bluesky, the AT Protocol (or ATProto for short). That means it will have the same requirements around posting images and videos as you’d find on Bluesky directly.
Originally, that meant support for posting up to four images and videos of one minute in length, but as of the Bluesky version 1.99 update released on March 10, users have been able to upload videos up to three minutes in length.
Flashes is somewhat similar to Instagram, as it offers a scrollable feed of photos and videos, user profiles, and even photo filters to enhance your images when posting.
Instead of having to start your network from scratch, Flashes’ users are immediately tapped into the wider Bluesky community, which now has over 37 million users. Even if not all of Bluesky’s users are on Flashes, their images and videos will be displayed in the app, as it essentially filters the Bluesky feed for visual content.
When you post on Flashes, it creates a post that appears on Bluesky as well. (For that reason, you may want to make a secondary Bluesky account if you want to keep the two networks separate.)
In addition, the app lets you browse your own Bluesky feeds and choose from Bluesky’s over 50,000 custom feeds, including those that focus on particular topics — like art, birds, gardening, or cat pics, for example — or those dedicated to specific formats, like Bluesky’s video feed.
As you browse through the posts in Flashes, you can like, repost, and reply to them, just as you can on Bluesky. Those interactions will also appear in Bluesky’s app, while Bluesky users’ interactions will show up in Flashes.
Photographers looking for a place to showcase their work will appreciate Flashes’ “Portfolio” feature.
To toggle this setting on, you’ll head to the “Advanced” tab on your user profile, then tap on “Flashes profile.” Here, there will be an option to enable Portfolio, which lets you curate which images should appear on your Flashes user profile.
You can also customize your user profile further by opting to show or hide likes, lists, and feeds, or using other media filtering options.
To use Flashes, you’ll first need a Bluesky account. If you already have one, you can sign in with those credentials.
If not, you can choose to sign up for a Bluesky account from within the Flashes app. The app defaults to setting up your account on the main Bluesky server, bluesky.social, but more technical users can opt to set up a custom hosting provider instead.
To create your account, you’ll need to provide an email address, password, and date of birth, then accept the terms of use, which means you agree to Bluesky’s Community Guidelines and Terms.
Once signed in, you can immediately start browsing the images and videos shared on your Bluesky timeline or any other Bluesky feed, or post your own media.
Vogelsang hopes that Flashes will help pull in more users to the Bluesky community, including those who aren’t as interested in a Twitter/X-like experience. Instead, the app appeals more to people looking for open alternatives to Meta’s Instagram.
It’s not the only app building in this space, however. Another app working on similar experiences is Pinksky. Meanwhile, users of Mastodon’s social network may prefer Pixelfed, which uses the fediverse’s ActivityPub protocol under the hood instead of Bluesky’s ATProto.
Over time, Vogelsang wants to add more features to Flashes, like push notifications, support for multiple accounts, bookmarks, and more editing options.
Plans to add subscriptions with premium features are in the works, which would help fund Android and web development. These paid tiers could also provide premium access to Vogelsang’s third-party Bluesky app, Skeets, and his video-focused app, Bluescreen.
Other planned features include iPad layout improvements, support for longer videos, posts that are only visible for a limited time (like Stories), albums, and batched image transfer from other platforms. Eventually, the developer would like to evolve Flashes to be its own AT Protocol-based platform, while still being compatible with Bluesky’s network.
The app is a free download from the App Store and requires iOS 17 or higher to run.
