How to Listen to Medium Articles Aloud

It depends on the author. In 2020, Medium added the ability for writers to record audio narrations of their own articles. When an author does this, a Listen button appears at the top of the article page, and you can play the recording in the browser or the Medium app. The quality depends on the author's recording setup. It is a human reading, not TTS.

For the vast majority of Medium articles, there is no Listen button because the author did not record one. Medium does not automatically generate audio from article text. If you want to hear those articles, you need to bring your own text-to-speech tool.

The workflow takes about 30 seconds per article once you know the steps:

1. Open the article in Safari. Use Safari on iPhone or Mac rather than the Medium app. If the article requires a Medium membership, make sure you are logged into your Medium account in Safari.
2. Activate Reader view. Tap or click the Reader button in Safari's address bar. Reader view strips the Medium clap button, the sidebar, the "Keep reading" prompts, and the footer. You get a clean page with just the title and the article text.
3. Export as PDF. On Mac: File then Export as PDF. On iPhone: tap the share button, find Print, pinch outward on the preview to open it as a PDF, then save it to Files or share it directly to LoudReader.
4. Import into LoudReader. Open LoudReader, tap the import button, find the PDF, and press play. The app reads the article aloud from headline to final paragraph.

For more on the import workflow, see listening to PDFs on iPhone.

Medium lets non-members read a limited number of articles per month for free. After that, articles show a truncated preview and a "Keep reading with a Medium membership" prompt. When you export the page as PDF, the PDF captures whatever is visible on the screen. If you are a member and logged in, the PDF contains the full article. If you are not a member, the PDF contains the paywall preview.

LoudReader does not bypass the paywall. It reads the PDF you give it. There is no Medium integration, no special access, and no workaround. If the content matters to you, a Medium membership gives you the articles plus the ability to capture them as full-text PDFs for listening.

Yes, and the queue is a folder of PDFs. Here is a workflow that works well for people who follow a lot of Medium writers:

1. During the week, use Medium's bookmark feature to save articles you want to read later.
2. Once or twice a week, open your saved articles, export each one as a PDF from Safari Reader, and save them to a dedicated folder.
3. Import the folder into LoudReader. The app lists the PDFs in its library, and you can play them in any order. Each one remembers its own playback position.
4. Listen through the queue during commutes, walks, or chores. Delete each PDF from LoudReader when you are done, or keep them as a reference archive.

This is a manual queue. It is not automatic and it takes a few minutes of prep per batch. But it keeps your reading fully offline and private. LoudReader is fully on-device and private, your library never leaves your device. No service knows which articles you saved or how much of each one you listened to.

If you listen to books this way too, the guide to listening while driving covers the playback side in more detail.