Better publishing on Medium’s mobile apps

Love to write stories on your phone? This one’s for you.

Ellie Budzinski
The Medium Blog
3 min readMar 16, 2023

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Two mobile screens showing the old publishing flow compared to the new publishing flow.
Left: publish flow pre-update, Right: publish flow post-update ✨

If you’ve ever published a Medium story on your mobile device, you might have been a little underwhelmed. There’s a reason why: The code that powers this experience is some of the oldest that still exists in our apps! Today we’re shaking off the dust with an update that brings key publishing features from desktop web to our mobile apps: the ability to add and edit topics, add a story to a publication, edit titles and subtitles, and meter your story.

Add and edit story topics

A walkthrough of adding topics to a story in the new publishing flow.

From the story preview screen, tap the topics section. Then, search for a topic or choose from the suggestions below and tap save.

Add your story to a publication

A walkthrough of adding a story to a publication in the new publishing flow.

From the story preview screen, tap the publications section. Choose from a list of your publications and tap save. (Not part of a publication yet? Check out this list of publications that are currently accepting submissions.)

Edit display titles and subtitles

A walkthrough of editing a story title in the new publishing flow.

Tap edit to start editing your display title or subtitle. This allows you to customize the way your story is displayed in public places (like Medium’s homepage), without affecting the content on the story page.

Meter your story

A walkthrough of turning on the meter toggle in the new publishing flow.

When a story is metered, that means it’s behind the Medium paywall, and it’s eligible to earn money through the Partner Program. Tap the toggle at the bottom of the screen to turn the meter on or off.

(Not seeing these changes? Make sure you’ve updated to the latest version of the Medium app on your mobile device.)

We know that many of you rely exclusively on our mobile apps to publish on Medium, and we hope that this update makes your experience a little bit better. What do you think? What would you like to see next? Let us know in the responses.

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Ellie Budzinski
Ellie Budzinski

Written by Ellie Budzinski

Product designer @Medium. Previously @TheAtlantic.

Responses (28)