What’s public or private on Medium?
Medium is a mostly public place, but we care a lot about privacy. There are several ways to post and communicate on Medium. This article lists and explains the view-ability of your content on Medium under each of those settings.
Published Stories
Public stories: Public stories may be distributed in streams, Medium digests, or directly through their URL. Public stories are by far the most common type on Medium. Making a story public will get your story the widest possible audience.
Unlisted stories: Unlisted posts, or highlights on unlisted posts, do not appear in the stream, digests, or other Medium-native distribution means. This is like non-broadcast publishing. But anyone with the link can view them. No password or token is needed. It’s a good way to share things with specific people without broadcasting widely. Don’t use this option for information that you want to keep private. You can tell a post is unlisted by the marking at the top that says “unlisted.” If someone sends you an unlisted post , don’t share it without the author’s permission.
Responses: Responses are just like stories and follow the same rules. Although they appear appended to the story they respond to, responses may also be distributed or shared independently. Like standalone stories, they may be listed or unlisted. Unlisted responses do not appear publicly underneath the stories they respond to, but like unlisted stories they can can be viewed by anyone with the link. Responding to an unlisted story does not affect the original unlisted story’s visibility.
Drafts
Like unlisted stories, drafts can be seen by anyone with the share link. We did this so that you can solicit feedback on drafts before publishing them. But be aware that sharing the link creates a risk that it will be seen more widely than you intended. If someone sends you a draft, don’t share it without the author’s permission.
Highlights
Highlights on public stories appear publicly on the story (to people in the highlighter’s network) and on the highlighter’s profile, and may be distributed in streams or Medium digests. Highlights on unlisted stories appear publicly on the story to people in the highlighter’s network, but are not otherwise distributed and do not appear on the highlighter’s profile.
Notes
Notes are only visible to the person leaving the note and to the author of the story or draft where they are left - except for stories in publications, which can also be seen by the publication editors.
Publications
Publication editors can see (and edit) drafts and stories in their publications. They can see (and respond to or dismiss) notes left on stories or drafts in their publication. If you leave a note for an author on a story, it may be seen by a publication editor if that story is in, or later added to, a publication. Since you may not know whether a story will eventually be added to a publication, don’t leave any notes that you wouldn’t want a publication editor (who is different from the author) to see.