Email addresses for iNaturalist accounts must now be confirmed
Until today, iNaturalist did not send confirmation emails to verify email address when anyone signed up for an account. The result is that many iNaturalist accounts have email address typos or have no email address whatsoever (usually because the account was made with Facebook and, due to your Facebook privacy settings, we were never sent your email address).
This means that if iNaturalist needs to send you an email, you won’t receive it. So when you request a password reset email, for example, you may never get it. Or, you might be able to make two accounts by accident. We want to prevent these things from happening as they're frustrating for users and require staff support to fix. We also need to be able to contact you about your account if necessary.
Starting today, we’re rolling out email confirmation to all iNaturalist accounts. If someone makes a new account, they will be sent an email to the address they entered when creating the account. They will then need to click a link in the email to confirm they received it in order to access their new iNaturalist account.
Here’s how it works for those with existing accounts:
If you already have an iNaturalist account, you have until September 6th, 2023 to confirm the email address for that account. You can do so by going to your Account Settings at https://www.inaturalist.org/users/edit. You’ll see the following:
Before clicking on anything, please check the email address - ensure it is spelled correctly and is for an email account you can access. Otherwise it may not be sent to you.
Once you have checked and/or corrected the email address, click on “Send confirmation email”. One last warning pop-up will appear before you are signed out of iNaturalist and the confirmation email is sent. You will remain logged in to iNaturalist.
After clicking “Send confirmation email” on the pop-up, check your email for an email confirmation message and click on the confirmation link in the email. It will take you to iNaturalist and you should see a banner that says "Your email address has been successfully confirmed."
If you do not receive a confirmation email after requesting one, please search for emails from no-reply@inaturalist.org. If you still can't find it, please email help@inaturalist.org.
Until you’ve confirmed your account’s email address, you will see this banner throughout the website:
UPDATED 12/15/22, 4:48 PM -07:00 - edited text to say that sending a confirmation email does not lock you out of your account, as that functionality has changed. An earlier update also removed text about those who have unsubscribed from past email as it was confusing.
UPDATED 9/6/23, 10:36 AM -07:00 - edited text and change confirmed-by date to September 6th, 2023.
Comments
Thanks for making Inat a safer place!
Shouldn't it be concerned as email confirmation in such case?
@kildor I'm not sure what you mean here, I'm sorry. Can you maybe provide an example?
@tiwane, In previous version of the post, there was a sentence about problems with sending confirmation message if the user unsubscribed itself from received iNat emails. So my question was: if you already got confirmation that this email address is alive, why should it be checked again?
But now there is no such sentence, so my question also should extinct)
Having received an email from a UK user in respect of not getting the confirmation email I thought worth highlighting the warning - " If you unsubscribed from all emails...
If you have unsubscribed from all email from us, we cannot send you a confirmation email. To re-subscribe, you need to find a previous email from us, click the unsubscribe link, and choose to opt back in to receiving email. If you cannot do this, please email help@inaturalist.org using the email address you've entered here so we can assist you. "
I assume that you could also go in to Settings / Notifications and change the settings in that to get notification emails ahead of undertaking confirming the email?
I successfully confirmed my email address, but was wondering if users who exclusively use the app versions of iNat will be able to see the email requirement notification.
There will be messaging in mobile apps as well.
My (college) students are trying to make an iNaturalist account. Some of them type in their email and iNat says that email is already in use.
But they have never created an account.
Have the new email configurations affected login / account creation issues?
I also sent an email to the help email as well.
@callieprice I'll respond to you via help@inat, but that might not happen until Monday.
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