Bluesky Private Accounts: Can You Make Your Account Private Yet?
No. As of October 30, 2026, Bluesky has no private accounts. There's no setting that hides your posts from people who don't follow you, and your posts, likes, reposts, follows, lists and blocks are all public. The closest you can get is two settings in Settings > Privacy and Security that ask apps to hide you from logged-out visitors and from strangers' Discover feeds. The protocol work that could change this has started. On August 20, 2026, Bluesky's protocol team released a developer alpha of atproto Spaces, the part of the protocol meant for non-public data. It isn't in the Bluesky app yet, and Bluesky hasn't announced a private-account feature built on it.
Many answers to this question are out of date. One popular page still says Bluesky accounts "likely never will" be private, and it was last updated in 2024. Since then, the protocol work has shipped as an alpha, Bluesky has announced private communities, and it has added a second "ask apps to hide me" setting.
So I checked how people use the closest thing to a private account today. On October 30, 2026, I looked up 5,994 accounts that posted on Bluesky in a two-minute window. 21.7% of them had asked apps to hide their account from logged-out visitors. For 100 of those accounts, I then asked Bluesky's public API for their posts without logging in. It returned posts for all 100.
(Disclosure: I make Agent Sky, a Bluesky growth tool. More on it at the end.)
Does Bluesky Have Private Accounts Yet?
No, and the requests for them have been open since 2023. Private/Locked accounts is an open issue on Bluesky's app, filed August 13, 2023, with 95 reactions. Support for Private Accounts has been open on the protocol since July 30, 2023, with 97 upvotes and no accepted answer.
Here's what has shipped around it, and what hasn't:
| Feature | Status (Oct 30, 2026) | Private from whom? |
|---|---|---|
| Hide account from logged-out visitors | Shipped, Dec 2023 | Only logged-out visitors, and only in apps that choose to respect it |
| Private bookmarks | Shipped, Sept 2025 | Everyone (only the save count is public) |
| Group chats, up to 50 people | Shipped, June 2026 | Everyone outside the chat |
| Hide posts from algorithmic recommendations | Shipped, Aug 2026 | Non-followers in the Discover feed. Posts stay public |
| atproto Spaces (non-public data) | Developer alpha, Aug 20, 2026 | Not in the Bluesky app |
| Communities with a "private" option | Announced, June 2026, for "this year" | Not shipped |
| Private accounts or followers-only posts | Not announced | n/a |
Some things on Bluesky are private: your mutes, your bookmarks (since September 2025), your settings and your email address. Your DMs are private from other users, but they aren't end-to-end encrypted. Everything else you do is a public record, including your likes and who you follow.
Why Doesn't Bluesky Have Private Accounts?
Because the network under it was built for public data only. The AT Protocol team said it plainly when it launched the Spaces alpha: "by design, all data stored on the protocol today is public — every post, every follow, every like, every block."
When you post, the post goes into your repository on your hosting server (your PDS). From there it's copied to a public stream that any app can read, and Bluesky's app is only one of those apps. A private account on X or Instagram works because one company stores everything and decides who sees it. On Bluesky, by the time you'd want to hide a post, other services have already copied it.
Being decentralized isn't the whole reason. Mastodon is decentralized too, and it has had locked accounts and followers-only posts for years:
| Platform | Private account setting | Approve who follows you | Posts only followers see |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bluesky | None | No | No |
| X | Protect your posts | Yes | Yes |
| Private account | Yes | Yes | |
| Threads | Private profile | Yes | Yes |
| Mastodon | Require follow requests | Yes | Yes, per post |
The difference is that Bluesky's protocol has no way yet to store a post that only some people can read. So a private account needs new parts of the protocol, not a new app setting. It's also why Bluesky's settings can only ask other apps to hide you. The Privacy and Security screen says so in a note under its settings:
Note: Bluesky is part of the Atmosphere, an open public network. These settings ask other apps and websites to limit your visibility, but they can choose not to. Your public content may still appear elsewhere.
When Is Bluesky Getting Private Accounts?
Bluesky hasn't given a date, but the parts it needs are now being built in public. The protocol work is called atproto Spaces. It was first called "private data", then "permissioned data", and briefly "buckets".
An atproto space is a gated area of the network where only the people and apps it allows can read the data. Here's where it stands:
- It's a developer alpha. The launch post (Aug 20, 2026) says "This is truly an alpha" and tells developers not to point non-developer users at it. It ends with "a goal of launching later this year."
- Private posts are one of its planned uses. The Spaces proposal lists "private posts, stories" and "subscriber-only posts" among the things it's for. One of its access policies hands decisions to a separate app, for things like "follower-gating or paid subscriptions."
- It's access control, not encryption. The proposal says Spaces "provide access control, not confidentiality." The servers and apps that store your private posts can still read them.
- Other apps are testing it, but not Bluesky's app. The protocol team has shown private groups in Grain, a photo-sharing app, using a test account on a Spaces-enabled server. A search of Bluesky's app repository on GitHub on October 30, 2026 found no use of the Spaces API (
com.atproto.space). - Communities may come first. Bluesky's head of product, Alex Benzer, said in June 2026 that communities are coming "this year". TechCrunch reported they can be "public, invite-only, or private." That would be a private group, and your profile would stay public.
Two things to expect when it arrives. First, the Spaces proposal doesn't turn existing public posts private, and copies of them have already gone out on the public stream. Second, anything in a space is only as private as the apps that can read it.
What Do Bluesky's Privacy Settings Actually Hide?
Less than their names suggest. These are the controls in the official app as of October 30, 2026, checked against its source code:
| Setting | Where | What it does | What it doesn't do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ask apps and sites not to show my account to logged-out users | Settings > Privacy and Security | Bluesky hides your profile and posts from logged-out visitors, and asks other apps to do the same | Hide anything from signed-in users. In Bluesky's words, it "doesn't make your account private" |
| Ask apps to hide my posts from algorithmic recommendations | Settings > Privacy and Security | Your posts appear in Discover only for people who follow you. Other apps can choose to honor it | Hide your posts from search, from your followers, or from feeds that ignore the preference |
| Allow others to be notified of your posts | Settings > Privacy and Security | Controls who can get notified of your new posts and replies: anyone who follows you, only followers you follow back, or no one | Stop anyone reading your posts |
| Who can reply and Allow quote posts | Post interaction settings in the composer | Limits replies to nobody, or to any mix of your followers, people you follow, people you mention and your lists. Can turn off quote posts | Limit who can see the post |
| Allow direct messages from | Chat settings | Limits who can start a DM with you (group chat invites are a separate setting) | Hide your profile |
| Block | Any profile | In Bluesky's app, the blocked account can't see your posts or contact you while signed in | Hide you from them when they're logged out or in other apps. And blocks are public records |
None of these is a private account. Together they cut down who finds you and who can talk to you. To see what a logged-out visitor can read, here's what Bluesky shows without an account.
How Many Bluesky Users Hide Their Account From Logged-Out Visitors?
About one active poster in five, and older accounts far more often than new ones. Turning on the logged-out setting adds a public label to your profile, so it can be counted. I looked up every account that posted during 16:03–16:05 UTC on October 30, 2026:
| Group | Accounts | Hide from logged-out visitors |
|---|---|---|
| All active posters | 5,994 | 21.7% (1,298) |
| Under 100 followers | 1,385 | 13.3% |
| 100–999 followers | 2,504 | 21.2% |
| 1,000–9,999 followers | 1,739 | 28.8% |
| 10,000+ followers | 366 | 22.7% |
| Joined in 2023 | 1,895 | 30.7% |
| Joined in 2024 | 2,345 | 21.1% |
| Joined in 2025 | 838 | 16.0% |
| Joined in 2026 | 906 | 9.7% |
The setting is off by default, so every one of those 1,298 accounts turned it on. Accounts from 2023 do it three times as often as accounts from 2026. That fits people who were around when Bluesky opened to logged-out visitors in December 2023, but my data can't show why.
Then I tested what it hides. I took 100 random accounts with the setting on and asked Bluesky's public API, with no login, for their recent posts and the accounts they follow:
- Recent posts: returned for 100 of 100.
- Accounts they follow: returned for 99 of 100.
- The same posts straight from each account's hosting server: 100 of 100.
That isn't a bug. Bluesky's website honors the setting. Its public API doesn't, and neither does your hosting server, which is what the setting's description warns you about.
How Do You Make Your Bluesky Account as Private as Possible?
Use the settings to reduce your reach, and keep anything you need to be private off Bluesky.
- Decide what can't be public. Anything you post, like, follow or block can be read and copied by anyone, now or later. Deleting a post removes it from Bluesky, not from copies other services already made.
- Turn on both "Ask apps…" settings in Settings > Privacy and Security. They keep you out of logged-out views and out of strangers' Discover feeds.
- Limit replies and quote posts. Set "Who can reply" to your followers or people you follow, turn off quote posts, and tick "Save these options for next time" so it sticks.
- Limit who can DM you and invite you to group chats, and use a group chat (up to 50 people) for things you'd say to a small circle.
- Use a second account for a smaller audience. It's still public, but it isn't linked to your main account unless you link it. Multiple accounts are allowed.
When Spaces reaches the Bluesky app, this list should get shorter. Until then, assume everything on your profile is public.
How I measured it, and the limits. I collected every account that published a post on Bluesky's public Jetstream stream during 16:03–16:05 UTC on Thursday, October 30, 2026, until I had 6,000. I looked each one up with Bluesky's public getProfiles API, and 5,994 returned a profile. "Hides from logged-out visitors" means the profile carried the !no-unauthenticated label set by the account itself. All 1,298 were self-set. Ten accounts had no signup date and are left out of the year rows. For the access test, I picked 100 of the 1,298 at random. Then I called app.bsky.feed.getAuthorFeed and app.bsky.graph.getFollows on public.api.bsky.app with no login, and com.atproto.repo.listRecords on each account's hosting server. Accounts that posted in a two-minute window lean toward active users, and 6,000 posters is one snapshot. An earlier sample of 2,996 profiles for finding X followers on Bluesky found a similar rate (19.7%). The Spaces details come from the AT Protocol blog and proposal as of October 30, 2026. New alpha builds ship weekly, and Bluesky warns of breaking changes.
Being public is also how people find you. If that's the side you want, I built Agent Sky for it. It finds active accounts in your niche, follows them at a human pace, well inside Bluesky's limits, and checks for a live follow-back before it unfollows anyone. $9 a month, free to start.
Quick FAQ
Does Bluesky have private accounts yet? No. As of October 30, 2026, there is no setting in Bluesky that makes an account private. Posts, likes, follows, reposts, lists and blocks are all public. The protocol work that could make private posts possible, called atproto Spaces, has been in a developer-only alpha since August 20, 2026, but it isn't in the Bluesky app.
How do I make my Bluesky account private? You can't fully, but you can reduce who sees you. In Settings > Privacy and Security, turn on "Ask apps and sites not to show my account to logged-out users" and "Ask apps to hide my posts from algorithmic recommendations". Limit who can reply and quote you, restrict who can message you, and keep anything you need to be private off your public account. Bluesky's own text says the first setting "doesn't make your account private."
When is Bluesky getting private accounts? Bluesky hasn't given a date. The protocol team released the Spaces alpha on August 20, 2026, with "a goal of launching later this year", and its proposal lists private posts and subscriber-only posts as uses. Bluesky's head of product said in June 2026 that communities are coming this year, and TechCrunch reported they can be private. Neither is a private-account feature in the app yet.
Why doesn't Bluesky have private accounts? Because the network was built to be public. In the AT Protocol team's words, "by design, all data stored on the protocol today is public — every post, every follow, every like, every block." Your posts are copied to a public stream that anyone can read, so a private account needs new parts of the protocol, not a new app setting.