Medium Web FAQ
General
What is Medium?
Medium.com is a website where anyone can read, write and respond to stories, posts and articles.
Download app
Download Medium iOS and Android apps: https://medium.com/m/app
Make a new Medium account
You can sign up for a new Medium account using your email address, or a social media account. See “Sign In / Sign Up” below for more info.
Memberships
Becoming a paying Medium member entitles you to exclusive content and early releases of new features. To become a member, go here and enter your payment details.
Send feedback & feature suggestions
We’re always interested in hearing your feedback, feature suggestions and bug reports. Contact us below.
https://yourfriends.medium.com
Sign In / Sign Up
Sign in / up by email
To sign in or sign up for the Medium app with your email account tap Sign in / Sign up > Sign in with email and tap the link in your email to sign into your account. If you sign in by email, there is no password.
Sign in / up with Twitter
To sign in or sign up for the Medium app with your Twitter account tap Sign in / Sign up > Continue with Twitter and follow the instructions to sign into your account. You can also connect a Twitter account later.
Sign in / up with Facebook
To sign in or sign up for the Medium app with your Facebook account tap Sign in / Sign up > Continue with Facebook and follow the instructions to sign into your account. You can also connect a Facebook account later:
Sign in / up with Google
To sign in or sign up for the Medium app with your Google account tap Sign in / Sign up > Continue with Google and follow the instructions to sign into your account.
Basics
Home feed
Once signed in, Medium.com acts as your home feed. Stories in your home feed are written or recommended by people you follow, plus publications & tags.
Search
To search, tap 🔍 and type in your search terms.
Write a story
To begin writing a new story, tap Write a story or user icon > New Story.
Notifications
To see recent notifications on your stories, tap 🔔.
Profile
To view your profile page, tap user icon > Profile. You can see all your stories, recent highlights and recommends, plus edit your bio and photo.
Profile
Profile picture
To change profile picture, tap user icon > Profile > Edit > 📷.
Edit your profile
To edit your profile, tap user icon > Profile > Edit.
Change settings
To change your settings, tap user icon > Settings.
Change notifications
To change your settings, tap user icon > Settings > Email settings.
Your stats
To see your stats, tap user icon > Stats.
Reading
Audio
Medium members can access exclusive professional audio editions of selected posts by clicking the play button on any supported post, or by going here to find all available audio posts.
Bookmarks
You can bookmark a story by tapping on the ribbon icon. To access your bookmarks, tap user icon > Bookmarks.
Clap for a story
Click 👏 under a story to clap for it. Stories you recommend will appear in the feeds of your followers.
Remove applause
From a post page, mouse over the clap button until an X appears > click the X.
From your feed or homepage, click the down arrow icon > Undo applause.
Highlight a story
While reading a story, select some text and tap Highlight. (You must be signed in.) Other readers in your network who visit that story will see what you highlighted.
Send a text shot to Twitter
Select some text in a story and tap the Twitter icon. (You must be signed in to both Medium and Twitter.) You will be able to send an image of your highlighted text to Twitter.
Leave a private note
Select some text in a story and tap 🔒. (You must be signed in.) You can leave a note that will only be visible to the author.
Responding to stories
To respond to a story, you can either select some text and tap Respond or go to the end of the story and tap “Write a response.” Responses have their own unique page and URL, and will include a link back to the original story.
Share a story
To share a story, scroll down to the end of the story and tap either the Facebook or Twitter icon. Or copy the URL of the story from the location bar.
Collections
You can browse curated collections and top stories on Medium by tapping one of the tabs at the top of the screen.
Writing
Write a story
To begin writing a new story, tap Write a story or user icon > New story.
Save a story
Drafts are saved automatically as you write and are synced so you can continue later or switch to another device.
Edit a published post
To edit your published story, go to the story and tap Edit.
Make a series
To delete a story you wrote, go to that story and tap Edit > Delete story.
Saved drafts
To see all your saved drafts, tap user icon > Drafts.
See your stories
To see all your stories, drafts and unlisted items by tap user icon > Stories.
Adding titles and sub-titles
In the editor, select your text and tap the big 'T' to activate a title, and smaller 'T' for a sub-title.
Change the text style
To make a word or phrase bold, italic or a link, select the text and choose B, I or 🔗 from the menu.
Add links in a story
To make text into a link, select it and tap 🔗.
Using @Mentions
To @mention someone in your story, type the @ sign, begin typing their name and pick them from the list. They will receive a notification when you publish your story.
Using lists
To begin a bulleted list, type ✱ and a space. For an ordered list, type 1. and a space. Or tap the list icon.
Using quote blocks
Select some text and tap the ❝ icon once for a normal quote and again for a pull-out quote.
Separator (line break)
To add a separator between paragraphs, go to a new line and tap + followed by the ••• separator icon.
Put images in a story
To add a photo or image to your story, go to a new line and tap + > 📷.
Set a featured image
Select the image you want to feature and type Shift + F, or ⌘ + Alt + 8 / Ctrl + Alt + 8.
Add a code snippet
To turn text into a code block, select it and press Cmd + Opt + 6 (Mac) or Ctrl + Alt + 6 (PC). Or go to a new line and add a triple backtick ```. For inline code, start it by typing a single backtick ` and again to close it.
Add tags to a story
When you’re ready to publish, tap Publish > Add a tag to add tags to your story. Add up to five tags.
Share a draft
From the Medium editor, tap Share to get the URL of the draft so you can send it to friends or colleagues for review before publishing. If they have a Medium account, they can leave private notes.
Add draft to a publication
When you’re done writing, tap ... > Add to publication > choose from list. Your story will still have to be published after you've added it to the publication, by an editor of the publication (could be you or another user).
Publish your story
To publish your post, tap Publish > Add any tags > Publish.
Remove a story from a publication
Go to the story you want to remove from your publication, scroll to the end and tap ... > Remove story from publication.
Unlisted stories
From your draft page, tap Publish > Scheduling / Visibility / License > Visibility > Unlisted.
Schedule a post
From your draft page, tap Publish > Scheduling / Visibility / License > Scheduling > Schedule to publish and set your publish time and date.
Assign a license
In your draft, tap Publish > Scheduling / Visibility / License > License > Choose your license.
Customize story title
In the editor, tap ... > Customize title / subtitle > Custom and set your custom title and subtitle.
Customize link title
To set a custom title as part of your URL, in the editor, tap ... > Customize title / subtitle > Custom - and set your custom slug.
Revision history
To access previous versions of your draft, tap ... > Revision history and choose the old version.
Cross-post to Twitter
First connect your Twitter account to your Medium account. When ready to publish, tap Publish > Share on Twitter as.
Publications
What are publications?
Publications are a way to group stories together by many writers or by one writer around a common theme or topic.
Add draft to a publication
When you’re done writing, tap ... > Add to publication > choose from list. Your story will still have to be published after you've added it to the publication, by an editor of the publication (could be you or another user).
Remove a story from a publication
Go to the story you want to remove from your publication, scroll to the end and tap ... > Remove story from publication.
Publication stats
To view publication stats, go to your publication's homepage and tap Owner / Editor > Stats.
Publication settings
Go to your publication homepage and tap Owner / Editor > Publication settings. You will be able to change the title, description, writers, editors, layout and nav for your publication.
Publication layout
To customize your publication layout, go to your publication homepage and tap Owner / Editor > Publication settings > Homepage. You can add graphics and sections.
Publication navigation
To customize your publication navigation, go to your publication homepage and tap Owner / Editor > Publication settings > Navigation. Tap the + sign and Add a tab with many stories (tag) or Add a tab with one story (link).
Send a letter / Letters stats
To send a letter to your publication's followers, go to your publication homepage and tap Owner / Editor > Letters. You can write and send a new letter or view stats for your letters.
Submissions queue
For a list of all pending submissions to your publication, go to your publication homepage and tap Owner / Editor > Submissions.
Add submission to publication
For already published stories, scroll down and tap ... > Manage submissions > Accept into publication. The ... button and menu will also appear at the top of unpublished drafts.
Delete publication
To delete your publication, go to your publication homepage and tap Owner / Editor > Publication settings > Advanced > Delete publication.
Migrate stories into publication
To migrate stories into your publication, go to your publication homepage and tap Owner / Editor > Publication settings > Advanced > Migrate stories into publication. Currently, you can only migrate single-author XML archives of WordPress sites into Medium.
Feed & Following
Home feed
Once signed in, Medium.com acts as your home feed. Stories in your home feed are written or recommended by people you follow, plus publications & tags.
View your followers
To view your followers list, tap user icon > Profile > Followers.
Follow People
To adjust who you follow, tap user icon > Follow your interests > People.
Follow Publications
To modify publications you follow or access publications you contribute to, tap user icon > Publications.
Follow Tags
To change which tags you follow, tap user icon > Follow your interests > Tags.
Dismiss a story
To dismiss a story from your feed, tap ⌄ down arrow > Show fewer stories like this.
Block Users
To block a user, go to that person’s profile page. Next to the Follow button, tap ⌄ down arrow > Block this user.
Report inappropriate content
To report abuse, harrassment, trademark & copyright infringement or other problems, contact us via the form below. You can also report a story anonymously by scrolling to the bottom of a story and tap on ... > Report Story.
Contact Trust & Safety: https://yourfriends.medium.com
Accounts
Change settings
To change your settings, tap user icon > Settings.
Change username
To change your username, tap user icon > Settings > Accounts > Your username.
Connect Facebook account
To connect your Facebook account to Medium, tap user icon > Settings > Connect to Facebook and sign in to Facebook.
Connect Twitter account
To connect your Twitter account to Medium, tap user icon > Settings > Connect to Twitter and sign in to Twitter.
Passwords
Unless you sign into Medium with a third party account, Medium does not use passwords. When you sign in by email, a link will be sent to the email address on file to sign in. It will expire after 15 minutes.
Change email preferences
To turn on or off email notifications, tap user icon > Settings > Email settings.
Export content
To download content you've posted to Medium, tap user icon > Settings > Export Content > Download as .zip.
Sign out of account
To sign out of Medium, tap user icon > Sign out.
Delete or deactivate my account
Tap user icon > Settings > Deactive account or Delete account.