Connect Bluesky
Bluesky has no consent screen for apps like ours, so you connect with your handle and an app password: a second password you create yourself, for one app, and can delete at any time.
The NioConnect teamUpdated 3 min readOn this page
- Time
- Under 2 minutes
- You need
- Your handle and an app password
- Where
- Bluesky settings, then Channels
Before you start
You need a Bluesky account and a NioConnect workspace. You also need to know the difference between your account password and an app password, because mixing them up is the one mistake that matters here.
An app password is made for one app, which here means posting on your behalf, and you can delete it without touching anything else. Your account password does far more than post, so NioConnect never asks for it.
Bluesky will accept it, which is exactly why this is worth saying. It works, and it hands over far more than the ability to post. Make an app password instead; it takes under a minute.
Create the app password on Bluesky
Do this first, in Bluesky itself.
- Open Bluesky, in the app or in a browser.
- Go to Settings, then Privacy and Security, then App Passwords.
- Choose Add App Password and name it something you will recognise later, such as NioConnect.
- Copy the password it shows you. Bluesky shows it once; if you lose it, delete that entry and make a new one.
Connect the account in NioConnect
The form has two fields and there is no second step.
- Open Channels in NioConnect and choose Connect, then Bluesky.
- Enter your handle, for example someone.bsky.social, or the email you sign in with. Leave out the leading @.
- Paste the app password, in the form xxxx-xxxx-xxxx-xxxx.
- Save. Bluesky posts as the account itself, so there is no picker afterwards.
What you should see
The channel appears in Channels with its Bluesky name and a healthy connection. It is now available in the composer, where a Bluesky post is checked against 300 characters and up to four images.
The password you pasted is sealed the moment you save it: it is encrypted, never shown again to you or to anyone on your team, and never written to a log. If you lose it you do not recover it from NioConnect; you make a new one on Bluesky and reconnect.
If something goes wrong
| What you see | What it means | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| The form rejects your details | A typo in the handle, or the app password was deleted | Remove any leading @, then check in Bluesky that the entry still exists under App Passwords |
| It worked, then the channel needs reconnecting | The app password was revoked on Bluesky | Make a new app password and reconnect from the same screen. Deleting one is meant to cut access |
| Your account lives on your own server | NioConnect signs in against bsky.social | Accounts hosted elsewhere cannot be connected yet |
Good habits
Keep one app password per app, so cutting off NioConnect never affects anything else you use. To disconnect for good, delete the app password in Bluesky; access ends at once and you do not need to involve us. Reconnecting after that is the same flow as connecting, so nothing you did here is a one way door.
If you manage several Bluesky accounts, connect each one separately with its own app password. Name each password after the account it belongs to, so a list of app passwords in Bluesky stays readable a year from now.
Next, write something. The guide to writing one post for several channels shows how Bluesky’s limit sits beside the others, and the Bluesky platform page lists exactly what it accepts.
Check your result
- Confirm the channel is listed in Channels and shows as connected.
- Check that the app password is named in Bluesky’s App Passwords list.
- Open the composer and see Bluesky offered as a destination.
- Delete any note that holds the password; you will not need it again.
Written by The NioConnect team.
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