Introducing Desk App

A Desktop App and a Writing Assistant for Medium

Published in

Desk

4 min readSep 14, 2020

Desk App is discontinued as of Jul 2022.
If you are looking for an alternative, Please check out Web Catalog: https://webcatalog.io/webcatalog/apps/medium/

The ideal length of a medium article is 1,600 words. Even seasoned writers find it hard to produce such editorial-quality Medium articles. Now imagine doing that consistently for an extended time without losing focus in a web browser. Now that is a day in the life of a Medium writer.

Writing has always been an activity that needs the highest level of focus. Medium’s minimal web-based editor is a good start. But it still lives inside a tab within a browser filled with distractions.

So we created the Desk app to help writers and editors like you to stay productive on medium.com.

The Desk app will help you cut distractions and improve the quality and consistency of your stories and publications. As your earnings are directly dependent on your productivity on Medium, let’s make the most of your time here.

Here is a basic walkthrough of the app and some screenshots.

Each story gets its own tab

Every story matters. Take your time to craft those with care. Each story opens in its own tab and stays there as long as you need it, even when you close and reopen the app.

A Dedicated Medium tab

There is so much more to do in Medium than just editing a draft — Maintaining your profile, checking how your stories perform, managing your settings, or just reading stories from other writers. You can do all of that in a tab dedicated to browsing Medium without disturbing your drafts.

And one more thing, you can get to writing as soon as you open the app, as it always starts in the drafts page as opposed to the medium.com home page.

Keyboard Shortcuts

Navigating through multiple pages and menu options to get things done can be distracting, especially for writers. You can always lose track if something catches your eye when you are in the middle of your writing. Keyboard shortcuts can help you stay focused and maintain flow.

Zen Mode

We all ❤ the editing experience in Medium. That’s why we have taken it one step further to make it more minimal. You can immerse yourself in an entirely distraction-free writing experience without having to leave medium.com

Import Drafts

Sometimes you might just want to open a plain text editor and start typing what’s on your mind and then decide what to do with it. Importing such stories — existing or new — to Medium is just a single click away. It doesn’t matter what editor you use. As long as the story is in markdown format, it can be turned into a Medium draft instantly.

Quick Links

We all often need to carry out certain tasks regularly within Medium other just writing our drafts — like checking stats, editing profile, etc. The Quick Links window will let you go to these pages within medium with just a few keystrokes.