this post was submitted on 03 Jun 2025
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cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/65824884

Hey everyone

We’re really sorry to say this, but lemm.ee will be shutting down on June 30, 2025.

What you need to know

As of now:

  • New user registrations are disabled
  • Creating new communities is disabled

What you should do:

  • You can export your settings at https://lemm.ee/settings to take them with you to another instance.
  • If you're moving to another instance, consider adding a note to your lemm.ee profile with your new username. Your old profile will still be visible from other instances even after we go offline.
  • Alternatively, if you want to delete your lemm.ee profile, now is the best time to do it, so the deletion can federate out before we go offline.
  • If you're one of the folks supporting us with a recurring donation, please remember to cancel it (Ko-Fi donations should have been cancelled automatically already). Our leftover funds are already enough to cover our bills for next month, so we can keep things running without any more support.

Because of how Lemmy is built, everything posted on lemm.ee will still be accessible from other instances, even after we go offline.

Why this is happening

The key reason is that we just don’t have enough people on the admin team to keep the place running. Most of the admin team has stepped down, mostly due to burnout, and finding replacements hasn’t worked out.

The sad reality is that while there are a lot of great people on Lemmy, there are also some who use the platform to attack others, stir up conflict, or actively try to undermine the project. Admins are volunteers who deal with the latter group on a constant basis, this takes a mental toll. Please understand why our admins chose to step down, and be kind to the admins on whatever instance you decide to join.


We know this sucks. We're genuinely sorry it’s ending like this. Thank you to everyone who spent time here and helped make it better.

– lemm.ee team

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[–] Demigodrick@lemmy.zip 105 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Ahh, this is really sad. Lemm.ee was always an instance that shined brightly, and @sunaurus@lemm.ee has helped me out a couple of times.

Sad day indeed.

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[–] conditional_soup@lemm.ee 98 points 1 week ago (1 children)
[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 57 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Sail into the sunset lemm.ee

You will be missed

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[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 90 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Really nice that they're doing a sunset period with advance warning instead of just randomly going dark. As Lemmy's first major "shutdown" we need to accept that this sort of thing seems inevitable from time to time, maybe this can set an example and open a conversation on how to handle this sort of situation in the future. I'd hope this creates some pressure to Fediverse developers to improve portability for users (and communities!) moving between instances, maybe even some kind of immigration/emigration mode for people or communities who want to apply to transfer their account and history rather than simply sign up a new account while posting a link from their old account. Federation should be able to do better than that.

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver@lemmy.world 83 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

What a loss. =(

It's a strange quirk of lemmy that we will continue to be able to see content from lemm.ee even after they've shut down. It'll feel like seeing ghosts.

[–] deus@lemmy.world 53 points 1 week ago (9 children)

A lot of the internet has been lost to time already so I actually appreciate this place having this kind of permanence.

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[–] db0@lemmy.dbzer0.com 71 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (5 children)

Sad to hear, had a very inspired name and the admin was very strong with hosting tech. Unfortunately however a generic instance with lax federation rules and no solid ideology, is a recipe for burning out your admins. The owner seemingly losing interest in lemmy also didn't help.

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[–] simple@lemm.ee 69 points 1 week ago (9 children)

My 2nd cake day was going to be a few days after shutdown :(

Lemm.ee was a fantastic instance, it will be greatly missed. Huge thanks to the admins and owner that made it happen for so long.

A shame the communities will be lost in the transition, the movies/television communities are genuinely cursed. This is the 4th or 5th time people moved that community.

I guess now would be a good time to give Piefed another shot. I love Lemmy and all, but new features have stalled for too long and I'm ready for some change.

So long, lemm.ee

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[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 67 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (8 children)

For lemm.ee users who will be migrating to new instances: You can export your subscriptions and blocks to import them to your new instance! You can export that info in your profile settings panel, and import it from the same page on your new instance.

[–] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 37 points 1 week ago (4 children)

yep, if you're a lemm.ee user then your Export button will be here: https://lemm.ee/settings

the bottom of the right column

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[–] WatDabney@lemm.ee 63 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (16 children)

This is sort of unfortunate, but as long as the fediverse remains genuinely decentralized, I expect it's just going to be a fact of life. Instances are going to come and go, alternately riding in on waves of determination and enthusiasm and out in sluggish streams of burnout and ennui.

And in a way, I think it's arguably even a good thing, or at least not a bad one. The basic structure of the fediverse prevents centralization through ownership, but there's still a risk of individual instances gaining enough clout to effectively act as a centralizing force. Not that Lemm.ee was in that position or even headed that way, but still, broadly I think that the understanding that instances are likely ephemeral — that they come and they go, and much more to the point that that's as it should be — is an important one.

And it neatly illustrates a large part of the reason that I have at least a dozen or so accounts scattered around the fediverse, including, for a little while longer, this one.

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[–] ShieId1145@lemm.ee 60 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Huh. One of the least expected instances I thought would shut down :(

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[–] serpineslair@lemmy.world 60 points 1 week ago

Sad to see it go, one of the biggest instances. But I totally get it from the admins' point of views.

[–] fievel@lemm.ee 59 points 1 week ago (12 children)

First thank you for the work (always keeping server up to date, fixing issues quickly, blocking spam,...).

Now time to think about migrating, any advices for another great instance?

[–] ProdigalFrog@slrpnk.net 66 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (8 children)

General instances:

Sopuli.xyz is a great medium sized general purpose instance. Good admins that update to the latest Lemmy release consistently.

Lemmy.cafe could be another option if you'd prefer a smaller general purpose instance (to help spread the load and prevent the burnout that lemm.ee experienced) that's also run by a solid admin.

Themed instances:

Retrolemmy.com - a cool place for retro tech/game enthusiasts

Literature.cafe - For book lovers and readers!

lemmy.dbzer0.com - fantastic instance for Anarchists and those who like to go Yarr! 🏴‍☠️

Programming.dev - For techies interested in programming and linux

Mander.xyz - Focused on Science and Nature

Lemmy.zip - PC Gaming and Tech focused

You can find more over at Lemmyverse.net

Piefed:

If you're willing to try an entirely new way to interact with Lemmy and the threadiverse, consider giving Piefed.social a try, a completely independent project from Lemmy. It's still a little behind in some ways, but also has a bunch of features that lemmy doesn't.


Also @blinkfink182@lemm.ee & @1024_Kibibytes@lemm.ee

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[–] Ashtear@lemm.ee 27 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I'm migrating to lemmy.zip, at least for the short term. They also have public instance reports, which was the major reason I joined lemm.ee. Transparency and accountability is essential. I guess the fact that those reports got more and more sparse at lemm.ee was a canary in the coal mine here....

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[–] Shadow@lemmy.ca 22 points 1 week ago (2 children)

I may be biased, but lemmy.ca is pretty great

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[–] FundMECFSResearch@lemmy.blahaj.zone 43 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Wow. This is by far the biggest loss I’ve ever witnessed on lemmy.

I totally understand it. It’s a shame it has to happen. Sending much love to the lemm.ee admins.

Also, generally, lemmy can feel very gloomy, there are a lot of fights and stuff as well. I know we can’t prevent this. But whatabout fostering a slightly less cynical culture? Lets compliment more, be slightly less snarky in our replies. Don’t only comment to criticise. Also comment to praise when you see something you like. :)

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[–] cm0002@lemmy.world 39 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Is transferring it to someone else in the cards? I have an LLC intended for my own future instance plans, but I'd be more than happy to take over .ee under it to prevent the loss of another good Lemmy-verse instance

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 1 week ago (3 children)

I can't comment on whether the admins are likely to be open to this, but it's definitely more drama than simply shutting down.

The data users provided to lemm.ee was entrusted to the admins of that instance. It might not seem like a big deal, but just handing it over isn't really appropriate.

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[–] SorteKanin@feddit.dk 32 points 1 week ago

It may also be relevant to note that content from lemm.ee will not be deleteable once they go offline. If you are a user on lemm.ee and there is any content at all that you may at some point in the future want to delete, now is the time.

[–] Gork@lemm.ee 32 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Very sad to see lemm.ee shutting down. I liked it here, the instance was easy to pronounce. Good luck lemm.ee admins with your future endeavors.

[–] Gork@sopuli.xyz 31 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Well that was super painless. Downloaded my .json settings, imported, and it's like nothing even happened. All sublemmy communities I was subscribed to before have migrated successfully.

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[–] Die4Ever@retrolemmy.com 30 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The key reason is that we just don’t have enough people on the admin team to keep the place running. Most of the admin team has stepped down, mostly due to burnout, and finding replacements hasn’t worked out.

Lemmy probably needs support for different levels of permissions, like Discord has, and PieFed has this too (but I don't think it's as in-depth as Discord yet)

[–] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 27 points 1 week ago

Relevant issue: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/issues/3375

It seems like nutomic is in favor of this idea. He stated that he wanted to implement such a thing in the future when most bug fixing is done. So we definitely could see this during the v1.x.x releases: https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy/pull/3303#issuecomment-1607459130

[–] Azzu@lemm.ee 29 points 1 week ago (2 children)

After the call for admins, there was never an indication that the search wasn't going well. Honestly, I would've put some time in (& I'm sure many others would've) if we'd known closure was imminent.

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[–] QuentinCallaghan@sopuli.xyz 29 points 1 week ago

Dang it! Lemm.ee was formed in summer 2023 alongside the other instances that became the Lemmyverse's biggest, sad to see it go. Thank you for everything!

[–] ayyy@sh.itjust.works 29 points 1 week ago (33 children)

I wish a sincere “fuck you” to all the Russian trolls that caused this outcome.

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[–] autonomoususer@lemmy.world 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Almost as if Lemmy should not tie each community to only one specific underlying server.

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[–] LastmonKingambit@lemm.ee 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

im going to miss lemmee also this is going to led to more lemmy.world centralization sadly

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[–] fxomt@lemmy.dbzer0.com 22 points 1 week ago

One of the best instances that was up. Sad to hear about it shutting down :/

[–] pelespirit@sh.itjust.works 21 points 1 week ago

I almost joined you. Thank you for all you did and I'm sad to see you go. I guess there's a reason why it's not that toxic on Lemmy, you guys were/are taking the brunt of it.

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