Help and support

Getting started

You do not need an account to read anything on CandyWrite. You need one to write, to like a story, to comment, and to follow a writer.

Create an account

1. Choose Sign Up in the top corner.
2. Fill in your full name, a username, your email address and a password. Your username becomes your public address (/author/your-username), so pick one you are happy to keep. It can use lowercase letters, numbers, hyphens and underscores, from 3 to 40 characters.
3. The password needs at least 8 characters, one capital letter and one number.
4. Tick the box to accept the Terms of Service and submit the form.
5. We send a confirmation link to your email. Open it, then log in. You cannot log in until the email address is confirmed.

If a Google button is shown on the sign-up and log-in pages, you can use it instead of a password. Choose one method and keep using it: an account created with Google has no password of its own.

Find your way around

The top bar has Home, Blogs (every published story) and a search box. Once you are signed in it also shows Dashboard and Write. Your account menu, at the right, opens your dashboard, the editor, your profile and your settings.

Reading and finding stories

Everything is free to read and no sign-in is needed. There are several ways to find something worth your time:

• Search. Type a word or a phrase in the search box at the top and press Enter.
• Topics are the broad shelves, such as design or technology. Each has its own page.
• Tags are narrower subjects chosen by the writer.
• Writers lists everyone publishing here. Each profile shows that person's stories and a short bio.
• Most Read shows what readers have opened most.

On a story page, the share buttons sit next to the like button. You can share on X, LinkedIn, Facebook or WhatsApp, or copy the link. Long stories also show a contents list so you can jump between sections.

Your account and profile

Open the account menu and choose Settings (or go to /profile/edit). From there you can change:

• Your profile picture and a cover image (JPEG, PNG or WebP, up to 5 MB each).
• Your full name, up to 80 characters, and your username.
• A short bio of up to 200 characters. Say who you are and what you write about.
• Links to your website and social profiles.

Press Save Changes at the bottom when you are done. Uploading a cover image does not save the rest of the form for you.

Forgot your password

On the log-in page choose the forgot password link, enter your email address and follow the link we send. Reset links do not last forever, so use it soon after it arrives.

Deleting your account

At the bottom of your settings is a delete option. You are asked to type the word DELETE to confirm. Deleting an account is permanent and it removes your stories with it, so download or copy anything you want to keep first. If you would rather we handle it, or you want a copy of the data we hold, write to support@candywrite.com.

Writing and publishing a story

Start a story

Choose Write in the top bar. Give the story a title, then write in the body. The title is limited to 150 characters. You will see the word count and an estimated reading time as you go.

Formatting

Select any text and a small toolbar appears with bold, italic, underline, inline code, three heading sizes, a quote and a link. The toolbar at the side offers the same, plus lists and these blocks:

• Add image: upload a picture from your computer or paste the address of one already online.
• Embed video: paste a YouTube link.
• Code block, Divider and Table.

Images can be JPEG, PNG, WebP or GIF, up to 5 MB. Large photos are resized in your browser before they upload, so a big file is usually fine. SVG files are not accepted.

Saving

A draft saves itself after about 30 seconds without typing, and you can save it at any time from the menu at the top. The label next to the title tells you whether the latest changes are saved. Drafts are private: only you can see them.

Publishing

When you are ready, press Publish. A window opens with the details readers will see:

• Subtitle. A line shown on story cards and in search results. If you leave it blank we use the first paragraph.
• Tags. Up to five. Type a tag and press Enter or a comma.
• Topic. The broader category your story belongs to.
• More settings (optional): the story's web address, an SEO title and an SEO description. Leave them alone and we fill them in from your title and subtitle.

The first image in your story becomes its cover picture. If it has no images it shows a default cover.

Editing, updating and unpublishing

A story that is already live does not save automatically. Make your changes and press Update. To take a story down without deleting it, choose Unpublish from the menu: it goes back to your drafts. Followers are emailed once, when the story first goes live, not each time you update it.

Managing your stories

Your dashboard shows the total number of stories, how many are published and how many are drafts, plus your total views, likes and followers. Below that is a table of everything you have written.

• Use Edit to open a story in the editor and View to see it as a reader would.
• Use Delete to remove one story, or tick several rows and delete them together.

Deleting a story cannot be undone.

Importing from Medium, WordPress or Substack

If you already write somewhere else, you do not have to copy and paste everything by hand. Open Import posts on your dashboard (or go straight to /dashboard/import). There are two ways to use it.

One article

1. Open the post on its original site and copy its address from your browser's address bar.
2. Paste it into the box and press Find article.
3. Check the preview: title, word count, number of images and any notes.
4. Tick the box to confirm the writing is yours, choose how the original should be treated (see below) and press Import as draft.
5. Press Review and publish to open it in the editor.

Whole blog

1. Paste the address of your blog or profile and press Find posts.
2. You get a list of your posts. New ones are ticked for you. Untick anything you do not want, or use Select all and Select none.
3. Confirm ownership and press Import. The posts come across one at a time, and you can stop between posts.
4. When it finishes you see how many were imported, how many were already here and how many failed, with a button to retry the failed ones.

Which link do I use?

• Medium. For one story, the story's own address (medium.com/@yourname/story-title-1a2b3c4d5e6f). For the whole blog, your profile (medium.com/@yourname).
• WordPress. For one post, the post's address (yoursite.com/post-name). For the whole blog, your site's home address.
• Substack. For one post, the post's address (yourname.substack.com/p/post-name). For the whole blog, yourname.substack.com.

Always open the link in your browser first. If you can read the post there without logging in, we can usually read it too.

What to expect

• Everything arrives as a draft. Nothing is published until you press Publish, so you can read each one over first.
• Images are copied to CandyWrite. They are not linked from the old site, so they keep working if that site goes away. An image that cannot be copied is left out and the report tells you.
• The original date is kept. When you publish an imported draft it carries the date it had on the original blog.
• Tags come across (the first five), and a story's YouTube videos are kept. Other embeds, such as tweets, become a plain link.
• Importing the same link twice does not create a copy. It tells you the post is already here.
• Medium only shares your 10 most recent stories. That is Medium's limit, not ours. Older stories cannot be imported from a link.
• Paid posts are partial. On Substack and similar sites, a members-only post only gives out its free preview, so that is all we can import. These are marked in the list.

Original site or CandyWrite as the main home

When you import you choose which address search engines should treat as the original. Keep your original site if the old post is still online, so Google does not see two copies competing. Choose CandyWrite if you are closing or leaving the old site.

Only import what is yours

You confirm each time that you wrote the content or have the right to publish it. We keep a record of that confirmation. Importing other people's work is against the Terms of Service and the post will be removed. There is also a limit on how much you can import: up to 100 articles a day.

Comments, likes and following

Anyone can read comments. To write one, to like a story or to follow a writer you need to be signed in. If you are not, the site asks you to sign in and brings you back to the same page afterwards.

• Comments can be up to 2,000 characters. You can reply to a comment, and replies can go a few levels deep. You can edit or delete your own comments whenever you like.
• Likes are a quiet way of saying thank you to the writer. Press the heart again to take your like back.
• Following a writer, from their profile or from their card on a story page, means you get an email when they publish a new story.

Be decent to each other. Comments that break the Terms of Service can be removed, and accounts can be restricted. If you see something that does not belong here, write to support@candywrite.com with a link to the page.

The newsletter

The sign-up form is in the footer of every page. Enter your email address, tick the consent box and subscribe. A welcome email follows. Every email we send you carries an unsubscribe link that works in one click, with no sign-in needed.

The verified badge

A grey tick next to a writer's name means we have reviewed their work and confirmed they are a consistent, genuine author. You can apply from your dashboard once you meet all of these:

• At least 10 published stories.
• 5,000 total views.
• 500 total likes.
• An account at least 3 months old.
• A complete profile, with a photo and a bio.
• No moderation violations on the account.

The verification page shows how close you are to each one. Applications are normally reviewed within 7 days. If one is declined you can apply again after 90 days. A blue tick is different: it marks official CandyWrite staff and cannot be applied for.

Cookies and your data

We ask before running analytics. The banner at the bottom of the page lets you accept or decline, and the two buttons are equal on purpose. You can change your answer at any time with Cookie settings in the footer. The Privacy Policy lists exactly what is collected and who sees it.