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.

Posted on Δεκέμβριος 15, 2022 1201 ΠΜ by tiwane