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National Library of Medicine Technical BulletinNational Library of Medicine Technical Bulletin

Table of Contents: 2019 NOVEMBER–DECEMBER No. 431

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The New PubMed is Here

Collins M. The New PubMed is Here. NLM Tech Bull. 2019 Nov-Dec;(431):e3.

2019 November 18 [posted]

An updated version of PubMed is now available at https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/ (see Figure 1). The new PubMed will become the default in spring 2020 and will ultimately replace the legacy version.


screenshot of new PubMed homepage.
Figure 1: The new PubMed homepage.

Responsive design

The new responsive layout offers better support for accessing PubMed content with the increasingly popular small-screen devices such as mobile phones and tablets. The interface is compatible with any screen size, which provides a fresh, consistent look and feel throughout the application, no matter how you access it (see Figure 2). A single, responsive website means that the features you use on the desktop are also available on your mobile device, including library icons for libraries participating in the Library LinkOut using Outside Tool service.


screenshot of PubMed homepage on mobile device.
Figure 2: Responsive design improves mobile experience.

Improved search

Find highly relevant articles more easily using the Best Match sort (see A in Figure 3), now the default sort order in PubMed. Best Match uses a state-of-the-art machine learning algorithm that is trained on aggregated user searches. The Best Match algorithm ranks search results according to several relevance signals. For more information about Best Match, please see the article, Best Match: New relevance search for PubMed.

The features and data you rely on

The new PubMed includes the features you rely on for searching, as well as saving and sharing your results.

  • Access the same trusted database of more than 30 million citations for biomedical literature.
  • Activate the default filters or customize the filter menu to meet your needs (see B in Figure 3).
  • Use the Results by Year graph to see trends in literature over time or to refine your search results by publication year (see C in Figure 3).
  • Save your search results to a file, email your results to yourself or a colleague, or send your results to a clipboard, collection, or your NCBI My Bibliography. (see D in Figure 3).
  • Go to the advanced search page to search for terms in a specific field, see the search details, review your search history and combine searches to create complex search strings (see E in Figure 3).
  • Save your search and create an email alert (see F in Figure 3).


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Figure 3: Access the features you rely on.

Click on the blue banner on the legacy PubMed home page to try the new PubMed (see Figure 4).


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Figure 4: The blue banner takes you to the new PubMed.

NLM will continue adding features and improving the user experience, ensuring that PubMed remains a trusted and accessible source of biomedical literature today and in the future.

For more details on the features in the new PubMed, view the recorded webinar, "A New PubMed: Highlights for Information Professionals."

See also:

The New PubMed Updated: Homepage, User Guide, My NCBI Alerts and Collections, and More

PubMed Labs Update: Using Filters

PubMed Labs Update: Library LinkOut using Outside Tool

PubMed Labs Update: Add Citations to the Clipboard

PubMed Labs Update: Advanced Search, History, and Search Details

An Updated PubMed Is on Its Way

By Marie Collins
National Center for Biotechnology Information

NLM Technical Bulletin National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health