Hidden Help Center Gems

You’ve got more Q’s. We’ve still got A’s.

Regardless of how long you’ve been on Medium, there’s always more to learn. Luckily, there’s a newly redesigned Help Center to answer most of your questions.

Since we know “ain’t nobody got time for that”, we’ve unearthed some of our favorite nuggets buried in the Help Center and packaged them in an oh-so-original Q&A.

You: Besides the obvious ego boost, what are the other benefits of recommending a story?

Medium: When you recommend a story on Medium, it’s no different than recommending something in real life to your friends. With Medium, recommending increases a story’s organic reach since stories you recommend now enter your followers’ feeds and email digests. It allows an author to reach a new audience he or she may have not been able to access. So if you read something you like, show the author some love with a recommend.

And beyond recommendations, we also encourage all writers to treat Medium no different than any other social platform. To learn more about how recommends, responses and highlights can work in harmony, check out the story below.

How to use recommends, responses, and highlights to increase traffic

You: I forgot my password and can’t log back in!

Medium: While we recommend users log into Medium via Twitter, logging in via email is cool too. If you’re using email, remember that it’s impossible to forget your password because Medium passwords don’t exist. As long as you still have access to your inbox, you can log back into your account.

Just like limits, Medium passwords do not exist.

You: Wait a second! How did you add that GIF?

Medium: Trick question. This one is actually not in the Help Center (though it probably should be). Currently, the only way to add GIFs is to download the file on your desktop and then upload it by clicking on the camera icon behind the embed toolbar. GIFs are also limited to 3 MB.

That question was really just an excuse to use this dog GIF.

You: Are you Periscope?

Medium: The answer is still no.

You: I can’t remember a shortcut. Do I really have to search through your Help Center just so I can find out how to add a separator?

Medium: Nope, you can just hit ⌘ + ? to access a list of shortcuts easily. You’re trying it now, aren’t you?

And if you want to see the full list of shortcuts, you can also find them here.

You: Let’s talk about unlisted stories. Aren’t they just private stories?

Medium: Not exactly. While unlisted stories won’t appear in search results, a tag page, a writer’s profile, a follower’s feed, or in your publication, they still can still be seen by anyone with the URL.

Also, as a pro tip, you don’t want to post a story as unlisted if you ultimately intend to make it public. If a story is unlisted and then made public, followers won’t receive push notifications for that story. If you’re editing, make your edits with the story as a draft.

You: Image grids are great, but how can I place my photos in a certain order?

Medium: Sure, try renaming your image files in alphabetical order and uploading them in that order to control which pictures show up first.

As easy as 1, 2, 3

You: What’s the Help Center link again? There were too many links in this story, and I already had 33 tabs open.

Medium: This. You should bookmark it.

You: HALP! I have a weird technical emergency and it’s the middle of the night! What should I do???

Medium: Email yourfriends@medium.com or fill out this form to capture all the necessary info. We have help center experts all over the globe that can help any time of day.