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How to Properly Move from Medium to WordPress

Editorial Note: We earn a commission from partner links on WPBeginner. Commissions do not affect our editors' opinions or evaluations. Learn more about Editorial Process.

Do you want to move your Medium blog to WordPress?

While Medium is a decent blogging platform, it is certainly no match for the flexibility of WordPress.

In this article, we will show you how to properly move your blog from Medium to WordPress without losing your content.

Moving from Medium to WordPress

Why You Should Move from Medium to WordPress?

WordPress is the most popular website builder in the world. It powers more than 43% of all websites on the internet.

WordPress is very easy to use, incredibly powerful, and easy to customize. To learn more about WordPress and what you can do with it, see our complete WordPress review with pros and cons.

Now, when we say WordPress, we are talking about self-hosted WordPress.org. Not to be confused with WordPress.com, which is a hosted platform. For a full comparison, see our article on the difference between WordPress.com vs WordPress.org.

While Medium is a good blogging platform for new writers, many users quickly realize that it’s quite limited when compared to WordPress. You don’t have full control of your website and customization options. You also can’t monetize it the way you may want to.

WordPress also provides a big advantage when it comes to building an SEO-friendly site. It allows you to optimize your on-page SEO and choose from responsive themes and templates to fit your brand identity.

If you have decided to switch from Medium to WordPress, then we want to congratulate you on making the right decision. We have created this complete step-by-step guide to help you move all your content from Medium to WordPress.

Bonus Free Offer: Since a lot of users have asked for this, we are now offering a free Medium to WordPress migration service as part of our free WordPress blog setup. This means one of our expert team members will do the entire migration for you (100% free). Yes, you can literally switch from Medium to WordPress without any risk.

However, if you are someone who likes learning and doing things yourself, then you can follow our step-by-step tutorial below.

Here is a breakdown of all the steps that we will be covering in this step-by-step tutorial:

Video Tutorial

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If you don’t want to watch the video tutorial, then you can continue reading the text version below:

Step 1. Install and Setup WordPress

To get started with WordPress, you’ll need the following two things.

  • A web hosting account. This is where all your website files are stored.
  • A domain name. This will be your website’s address on the internet and what users will type in their browser to reach your website (For example, wpbeginner.com)

A domain name typically costs around $14.99 / year, and website hosting starts from $7.99 per month.

Thankfully, Bluehost, an official WordPress-recommended hosting provider, has agreed to offer our users a free domain name and over 60% off their web hosting service.

→Click Here to Claim This Exclusive Bluehost Offer ←

If, for some reason, you want other options, then you can look at our list of the best WordPress hosting companies.

Once you have set up your domain and hosting, the next step is to install WordPress.

Most WordPress hosting companies offer 1-click install options that you can use to instantly install WordPress. If you can’t find it, then ask your hosting provider’s support, and they will set it up for you.

You can also do it on your own. See our complete guide on how to install WordPress for step-by-step instructions.

After you’re done installing WordPress, you’re ready to move on to the next step, which is to export your content from Medium.

Step 2. Exporting Your Data from Medium

Previously, it was quite difficult to export your data from Medium in a WordPress-compatible format.

We decided to solve this problem and developed a Medium to WordPress Importer tool.

It is a free online tool that imports your content from Medium and converts it into a WordPress-compatible export file. It does not make any changes to your existing Medium content, so it is perfectly safe to use.

Head over to Medium to WordPress Importer website and enter your Medium blog URL.

Enter your Medium blog URL

Now, if your Medium blog URL is using a custom domain name and has a URL like http://example.com or https://something.example.com, then enter the URL with your name and email address.

On the other hand, if you don’t have a custom domain name, then the Medium to WordPress Importer will ask you to upload the Medium export file.

Upload Medium export file

Here is how you can get that export file from Medium.

First, you need to log in to your Medium account and click on your profile photo at the top right corner of the screen. This will bring down the menu. From here, you need to click on the ‘Settings’ link.

Go to Medium settings page

This will take you to the settings page, where you need to scroll down to the ‘Download Your Information’ section.

Click on the ‘Download zip’ button to export your Medium data.

Download zip file

On the next page, you need to click on the export button. Medium will then prepare your download and send a link to you via email.

You need to check your email to see if you get the email from Medium. You need to follow the link in the email to download your Medium export file.

Once you have downloaded the Medium export file, you can switch to the Medium to WordPress Importer tool and upload that file.

Upload your Medium export file

Next, click on the ‘Export My Medium Website’ button to continue.

Medium to WordPress Importer will now prepare your export file. Once finished, it will show you a success message with a button to download your WordPress-ready Medium export file.

Download WordPress compatible Medium export file

Go ahead and download the export file to your computer. You will need that file in the next step.

Step 3. Importing Your Medium Articles into WordPress

Now that you have successfully exported your Medium content into a WordPress compatible format, it is time to import that content into your new WordPress blog.

Visit the WordPress admin area of your website and go to the Tools » Import page.

You will see a list of importers available for different platforms. You need to scroll down to WordPress and then click on the ‘Install Now’ link.

Install WordPress importer

WordPress will now fetch the importer plugin and install it on your WordPress site without reloading the page.

Once it is installed, you need to click on ‘Run Importer’ to launch it.

Run WordPress importer

This will bring you to the WordPress importer page. Go ahead and click on the ‘Choose file’ button to select the export.xml file you downloaded earlier.

Next, click on the ‘Upload file and import’ button to continue.

WordPress importer will now upload your Medium export file and analyze it. On the next screen, it will ask you to assign authors.

Import options

You can import the author from your Medium website, create a new author, or assign all content to your existing WordPress user.

Don’t forget to check the box next to the ‘Download and import file attachments’ option. It will fetch images from your Medium website into your WordPress media library.

You can now click on the Submit button to run the importer.

WordPress will now import content from the Medium export file. It will also try to fetch images in your Medium articles.

Upon completion, you will see a success message.

Success message

Congratulations, you have successfully imported content from Medium to WordPress. You can now go to the posts page in your WordPress admin area to see if all your content is there.

If the import process fails in the middle, then you can always run it again. The importer is smart enough to detect duplicate content and skip it. It will only import the content that wasn’t imported successfully in the previous attempt.

Step 4. Importing Your Images From Medium to WordPress

The WordPress importer tries to import images from your Medium articles to the WordPress media library. However, it may fail due to the way Medium displays images in your articles.

You need to go to the Media » Library page to see all images that have been imported successfully.

Media library

If some or all of your images fail to import, then you will need to import them again.

First, you need to install and activate the Auto Upload Images plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you need to update the posts containing the external images. This update will trigger the plugin to fetch and store the external images in the article.

You can also bulk update all articles at once to quickly import all images. For detailed instructions, see our step-by-step tutorial on how to import external images in WordPress.

Step 5. Setting up Redirects

If your Medium stories had a medium.com URL, then you cannot set up redirects.

If you were using a custom domain for your Medium publication, then you can set up custom redirects in WordPress.

First, you will need to get all URLs of your Medium articles and save them in a text file. After that, you need to start setting up redirects for all your articles.

There are multiple ways to set up redirects in WordPress. You can follow the instructions in our beginner’s guide to creating redirects in WordPress for detailed instructions.

Step 6. Installing a WordPress Theme

By default, WordPress comes with a pretty decent-looking design for your website. However, you can change it to anything else that you like. There are thousands of free and premium WordPress themes that you can use to customize your website.

Following are our expert picks of the best WordPress themes in various categories:

After you have chosen a theme, you can follow our guide on how to install a WordPress theme to set it up.

Step 7. Installing Essential WordPress Plugins

Plugins are like apps for your WordPress blog. They allow you to add new features and extend the functionality of your WordPress site. To learn more, see our article about what are WordPress plugins and how they work.

There are thousands of free and premium WordPress plugins that you can install on your website. At the time of writing this article, the WordPress.org plugin directory alone had more than 59,000 thousand free plugins.

With this in mind, how do you know if you need a WordPress plugin? More importantly, how do you find out the best WordPress plugin for the job?

Well, there are some WordPress plugins that are made for specific websites. For example, eCommerce plugins, membership plugins, or LMS plugins.

Then, there are plugins that almost every website needs. Let’s install some of those plugins on your new WordPress site.

Need more plugin recommendations? Check out our pick of the essential WordPress plugins every website should have.

Step 8. Learning WordPress

WordPress is quite easy to use. However, as a new user, you may need some help familiarizing yourself with the platform.

This is where WPBeginner can help. We are the #1 WordPress resource site with thousands of tutorials, guides, and videos created specifically for beginners, small businesses, and non-tech users.

Following are some of the helpful resources that you can find from WPBeginner (all of them are completely free).

  • WPBeginner Blog – The central place for all our WordPress tutorials and guides.
  • WPBeginner Dictionary – Our WordPress glossary is the best place to familiarize yourself with the WordPress lingo
  • WPBeginner Videos – New WordPress users can start with these 23 videos to master WordPress.
  • WPBeginner on YouTube – Need more video instructions? Subscribe to our YouTube channel with more than 270,000 subscribers and 31 Million+ views.
  • WPBeginner Blueprint – Check out the plugins, tools, and services we use on WPBeginner.
  • WPBeginner Deals – Exclusive discounts on WordPress products and services for WPBeginner users.

We hope this article helped you learn how to properly move from Medium to WordPress. You may also want to see our ultimate guide on how to improve your WordPress SEO and our comparison of the best email marketing services.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. This means if you click on some of our links, then we may earn a commission. See how WPBeginner is funded, why it matters, and how you can support us. Here's our editorial process.

Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi with over 16 years of experience in WordPress, Web Hosting, eCommerce, SEO, and Marketing. Started in 2009, WPBeginner is now the largest free WordPress resource site in the industry and is often referred to as the Wikipedia for WordPress.

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Reader Interactions

18 CommentsLeave a Reply

  1. Syed Balkhi says

    Hey WPBeginner readers,
    Did you know you can win exciting prizes by commenting on WPBeginner?
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  2. Mark says

    Super helpful… worked like a charm! I’m curious what the appropriate etiquette for my previous medium site is. I was on a free account. Do I pull down the original articles? I don’t want to be negatively impacted by Google for having duplicate content without properly attributing Medium (even though it would be my own content). Any advice here? Thanks!

    • WPBeginner Support says

      We would recommend having a post to let your visitors know of your new site location, then you would unpublish the old articles to prevent any duplicate content concerns.

      Admin

  3. Sunny says

    Hi there,

    I tried using the mediumtowp tool, but it’s giving me a “this is a very big zip file” error.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      For issues like that, please reach out to us using our contact form and let us know the URL of your site.

      Admin

  4. Robin says

    Thanks for the article, I have all the posts migrated to WordPress how do I add 301 redirect so the traffic starts to redirect to the WP blog now and not go to a 404 page?

    • WPBeginner Support says

      You would want to take a look at step 5 in this guide for how to set up the redirects :)

      Admin

  5. Ishaka, mohammed b. says

    Thank you for the article. It’s been helpful. However, I have an article in medium that enjoys traffic from another site on referral, my concern is: how can that continue if that same write is exported to wordPress considering that the referral link was to medium?

    Thanks.

    • WPBeginner Support says

      While you are able to, Google will likely see that as duplicate content which can affect your SEO

      Admin

  6. Phil says

    There doesn’t seem to be a medium.rss file in the .zip file. How should I import the HTML stories now?

  7. Adam Williams says

    I have followed these steps but I fall at the final hurdle. I get an error message in wordpress “File is empty. Please upload something more substantial. This error could also be caused by uploads being disabled in you rphp.ini or by post_max_size being defined as smaller than upload_max_filesize in php.ini. I’ve spoken to wpengine and they confirmed that this is not the case with regards to the server side stuff and they couldn’t help troubleshoot the issue. I can find nothing else online to help me get these posts in, so am stuck. Would buy anyone that can help me sort this a crate of beer!

  8. Jaki Levy says

    This is particularly useful, considering Medium’s announcement today to lay off 1/3 of its staff.

  9. Camille says

    Thank you for this tutorial. It seems like the WP menu has changed a bit since you wrote it but I still managed to find what I needed and do the import. I feel so free!!

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