How to import Markdown into Medium

UPDATE #2: Twitter user Jacob Bennett built a tool called Markdown To Medium which automates the majority of this process.

UPDATE: I have gotten several responses over the past few months of people telling me that this method no longer works. If you find a workaround, let me know, and I’ll update this again.

I’ve figured out an easy way to import Markdown into Medium.

I write these Train of Thoughts posts as Markdown files. Medium doesn’t allow for Markdown in a story, leaving me with random #, *, _, and [] throughout my story.

At first, I had to manually go through and modify my story in Medium and remove all of my markdown formatting. This was a pain. Here’s how I fixed it (NOTE: you will need a GitHub account to do this):

1. Go to gist.github.com and select “markdown” as the Language (or just give it a filed name with a .md extension)

2. Copy/Paste your markdown file into your gist.

3. Click “Create Secret Gist”

4. Copy URL of your newly created secret gist

5. Go to Medium and select “Import Story”

6. Paste your link and Import.

That’s it. You can then remove the “Originally published…” at the end of the Medium story if you want.

This works because secret gists aren’t 100% hidden, they can be accessed by the URL directly. It’s not as easy as it could be if Medium supported Markdown, but it’s far easier than manually reformatting your entire story in Medium.