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Tumblr Hack Day, March 2026 Edition
engineering
Summary
Tumblr engineering paused its regular roadmap to hold the March 2026 Edition of Hack Day, developing a series of experimental features across web and mobile platforms. Projects included relocating Asks and Submissions into an Activity screen Unified Inbox, integrating GIF support into replies, and redesigning the Reblog Graph Explorer layout to smoothly handle large viral reblog chains. Mobile updates established in-blog search filter parity across Android and iOS while unlinking in-blog search from the broader search exclusion setting. For community governance, engineers added granular moderator permissions and confirmation safeguards for admin promotions. Additional prototypes introduced native RemindMe notification triggers, video reblogs, Likes sorting, dashboard post launcher shortcuts, and archive-based historical Memories.
Context
Tumblr engineers paused the standard product roadmap during Hack Day to build experimental, functional, and niche features addressing platform usability gaps and user requests.
Approach / What changed
Engineers developed and prototyped several updates across platforms, including unified inbox navigation, reblog graph layout scaling for massive chains, mobile search filter parity on Android and iOS, granular moderator permission settings, archive-based Memories, and native reminder triggers.
Takeaways
- In-blog search functionality was separated from the Exclude from Tumblr Search and Recommendations setting so users retain blog search capabilities.
- Mobile in-blog search reached parity by adding Top/Recent sorting, post type filters, and an original posts filter on Android, alongside a new bottom sheet on iOS.
- A new permissions system allows community admins to grant moderators control over appearance, settings, and other moderators without relinquishing ownership.
Related reading
engineering.tumblr.com ·
Tumblr Hack Day, January 2026 Edition
Tumblr's January 2026 Hack Day allowed engineers to pursue projects outside the standard product roadmap, yielding improvements across search, community management, and iOS integration. The team implemented an exclusion operator for advanced searches alongside an operator reference modal, search capabilities within individual Communities, and a community feed tab that elevates posts with recent comments. Mobile updates introduced iOS Home Screen widgets featuring Radar and quick actions, while Spotlight, Siri, and Shortcuts support now facilitate rapid navigation and post creation. Additional explorations produced content-based tag suggestions, an investigation into removing secondary blog limitations, and a full-screen Reblog Explorer featuring keyboard-navigable branching trees to trace post propagation across the platform.
engineeringengineering.tumblr.com ·
Tumblr Hack Week, September 2023 Edition
Tumblr hosted its September 2023 Hack Week, pausing standard workflows to let engineers explore custom features and personal platform improvements. Following the production release of a direct messaging redesign from the March Hack Day, this edition produced several prototype projects. The Tumblr Patio project created a multi-column dashboard view allowing users to organize feeds such as Following, Trending, Activity, searches, and Collections side-by-side. Another team developed Tumblr Booths, an integration leveraging sibling platform WooCommerce to enable blogs to sell physical and digital goods directly. Finally, the Avatar Frames and Hats project prototyped purchasable and giftable cosmetic items for user profiles across the network.