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  3. Subscription troubleshooting

Trouble with membership subscription access

If you have purchased a membership subscription on Medium, and you’re unable to access member-only stories and features on all or some of your devices, this guide will help you troubleshoot this issue.

I purchased a subscription but I don’t have member access

Step 1: Find your primary Medium account

Make sure that you know what accounts you have created on Medium and how to access them. You can find your other Medium account in multiple ways:

  • If you have a membership subscription, check all your email inboxes and try to find the email titled "Thank you for becoming a member." If you are able to find that email, it means that your membership Medium account is associated with that email address.
  • Check if you can find any other emails from Medium in your email inboxes. If you have received emails from Medium to a specific inbox, it means that you have an account associated with that email address.

Step 2: Sign in to your primary account

If you know which of your email addresses is associated with your primary Medium account, you will need to sign out of your existing account and sign in to your primary account instead.

Web App
  1. On your homepage, click on   your profile picture.
  2. Click Sign out.
  3. On the Medium homepage, click Sign in in the top-right corner.
  4. Choose Sign in with email.
  5. Enter the email address of your primary account and click Continue.
  6. Go to your inbox and open the verification email.
  7. Click Sign in to Medium in the email to be redirected to Medium and signed in to your account.
Note: The email verification link expires after two hours and can only be used once. If you run out of time or need a new email login later on, you can simply follow the same process again to get a fresh email login link.

Platform-specific issues

iOS / iPadOS Android

My membership subscription purchased through Apple is not recognized

If you’re not able to access your membership immediately after purchase, try restarting the Medium app. This should force it to refresh its data and correctly recognize your membership subscription.

If you have any problems with resolving any of these issues, please don’t hesitate to let us know.

Error restoring purchase

To restore your membership subscription purchased through iTunes:

  • In the Medium iOS app, go to the You tab (👤).
  • Tap Settings.
  • Tap Restore purchase.

Once you tap the button, the subscription should properly connect to your Medium account, and you should receive an email from membership welcome email from Medium.

If tapping the Restore purchase button results in the Error restoring purchase message, it means that the Medium membership purchased through iTunes was purchased using another Medium account.

To resolve this problem, you would need to sign out of the account you're currently signed in to, and sign in to the account from which you made the purchase. If you still have problems with your subscription, tapping Restore purchase from that account should properly connect your subscription with your Medium account.

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