Check if a Medium username is taken

What we check on Medium

Instant tier for username lookups - answered in well under a second

Medium is checked from a username. The response says whether that handle exists on Medium - registered: true or registered: false - with the moment that was established in checkedAt. An email address on its own cannot reach Medium; if you only have an email, its local part is tried as a handle and any hit is labelled as derived, never counted as a confirmed match.

Medium is in the instant tier: with ?instant=true it is among the first platforms answered, in well under a second. On a full lookup it is checked alongside every other platform and streamed as it lands.

If Medium blocks the check, times out, or answers ambiguously, it is omitted from results[] entirely rather than returned as registered: false. Absence from the response means "unconfirmed", never "no account".

Who checks Medium accounts

Media and publishing accounts are checked because listening, reading and blogging histories are among the oldest footprints a real person leaves. An email that has streamed music or published posts for years behaves like a real customer; one with no media history at all is more often a fresh, single-purpose address.

More on this: Email fraud detection.

Inputs Medium accepts

• Username: send the handle as query. Medium is checked for that exact handle - useful when a person reuses the same name across platforms.

One request

curl -X POST "https://api.digifootprint.dev/v2/lookup?wait=true" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer dfp_your_key" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"query": "someuser"}'

What a Medium result looks like

{
  "platform": "medium",
  "registered": true,
  "checkedAt": "2026-10-15T09:53:16.357Z",
  "identity": "username"
}

The full response shape - breaches, web mentions, matches versus socialMatches, and what method means - is in running a lookup.

Related platforms

Every one of these is checked in the same request as Medium.

More media & publishing platforms: Substack, Blogger, CNET, Dailymotion, Bandcamp, Goodreads · all media & publishing

Medium lookup FAQ

Can I check a phone number on Medium?

Not directly. Medium can be reached from username. Phone numbers are checked on the messaging and social apps that sign people up by phone.

How fast is a Medium check?

Fast: Medium is in the instant tier, so with ?instant=true it is answered in well under a second. A full lookup streams it as soon as it lands.

What happens if Medium blocks the check?

Medium is left out of the response. We never report a platform we could not confirm as "not registered" - a missing platform means unconfirmed, not absent.

Does the API return the Medium account details?

No. You get whether an account exists for the input you sent, and when that was established. No profile contents, photos, followers or private data are collected or returned.