mander.xyz is a pretty small instance devoted to science and nature communities. It's relatively tiny compared to lemmy.ml and beehaw.org. In order for a community to appear in the smaller instance's community list it must first be "fetched". To do this, you have to enter the full url for the community you want to fetch into the community search bar.
So for example, I was trying to find !nfl@lemmy.ml and it just wasn't coming up in the mander.xyz community list. I tried entering "nfl", "!nfl@lemmy.ml" into the search bar. I even navigated to https://mander.xyz/c/nfl@lemmy.ml which was giving me a 404 at the time but is now working after the fetch.
So if you're on a smaller instance and aren't seeing communities from larger instances, try entering the url of the community as it would be hosted from the larger instance. Hit enter to do a fetch, then try typing the name of the community again to execute the search.
PS: I had to do the same trick again on mander.xyz to find this community.
How do you find the url of the community. For example, I want to see if my city has a community / instance somewhere but don't know what they would call it. How do I find that
You can use the Lemmy community browser
That's definitely the better option. Totally slipped my mind.
That's the hard part. I navigate to different instances and check their community listings (either local or all). When you find a community you like, you have to copy the url from that page then go back to your instance and paste it into the community search bar.
Ah ok... I'm not even sure how to search jeroba for anything yet this might have to be a thing I do on Monday when I'm back near a computer
A different option from Jerboa is the Lemmy progressive web app. It gives you the same functionality as you would have on a web browser.
In Chrome, login to whatever Lemmy instance you’re registered with, click the triple dot menu, and click “install app”. You’ll get a “Lemmy” app downloaded and added to your homescreen that looks and functions just like the website.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progressive_web_app