# Search Users by EMail not working

**URL:** <https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/search-users-by-email-not-working/85779>\
**Category:** Bug Reports\
**Tags:** issue-made\
**Created:** [September 23, 2026, 5:51pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/search-users-by-email-not-working/85779 "2026-09-23T17:51:13Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![xris](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/xris/32/710_2.png) [@xris](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/xris)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 5:51pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/search-users-by-email-not-working/85779/1 "2026-09-23T17:51:13Z")

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**Platform** : Browser

**App version number** , if a mobile app issue:

**Browser** , if a website issue:

Vivaldi 8.2.4133.68 (Can reproduce this problem in latest versions of Firefox and Chrome)

**URLs (aka web addresses) of any relevant observations or pages**:

[https://www.inaturalist.org/people](https://www.inaturalist.org/people)

And search results page (email elided from URL):

[https://www.inaturalist.org/search?utf8=✓&q=EMAIL\_ELIDED&commit=Go&source[]=users](https://www.inaturalist.org/search?utf8=%E2%9C%93&q=EMAIL_ELIDED&commit=Go&source%5B%5D=users)

**Screenshots of what you are seeing** :

**Description of problem** :

Step 1: Login to iNaturalist

Step 2: Got to Menu Community \> People

The People page is displayed. The Search field prompts “Search by name or email”, as expected.

 ![image](https://us1.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/uploads/inaturalist/original/3X/2/7/27cffc218af290d4363eccec07d3453e85c34686.png)

Step 3: I enter my own email in the Search field and press Enter.

The Search Results page is returned. The “Users” tab is highlighted but reports “No results found”. It should have returned my iNat User name.

Searching by my User name - xris - works (and returns many unwanted results).

**NOTES**

I tried searching Bug Reports and other Forum Categories but could find nothing mentioning this bug.

I have a list of people I’m coaching to use iNaturalist. I have their emails. I’m trying to check if they already have an iNat account with their emails so I can add them to a Members-Only Project I created for this initiative.

I can email them outside of iNaturalist, but I shouldn’t have to, if “Search by email” is actually supported. If it’s not, it should be removed as an option from the Search field prompt.

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**Author:** ![pisum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/91b2a8/32.png) [@pisum](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/pisum)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 7:02pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/search-users-by-email-not-working/85779/2 "2026-09-23T19:02:20Z")

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i doubt that this is actually a bug (other than the label in the text input box).

if any random person out there could search for iNat accounts based on e-mail address, that could be considered a serious privacy leak.

if you’re trying to add specific users to a project, you probably need to ask them for their iNat accounts, or you can also just set up your project to include things from members only so that you won’t need to maintain that list of users yourself. (the project will get stuff just based on whoever has joined the project.)

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**Author:** ![tiwane](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/tiwane/32/54612_2.png) [@tiwane](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/tiwane)\
**Post date:** [September 23, 2026, 7:07pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/search-users-by-email-not-working/85779/3 "2026-09-23T19:07:40Z")

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Yeah, it’s not a bug, you can’t search by email address. We need to remove `or email` from that text box, I’ve made an issue to do that.

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**Author:** ![tiwane](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex016/user_avatar/forum.inaturalist.org/tiwane/32/54612_2.png) [@tiwane](https://forum.inaturalist.org/u/tiwane)\
**Post date:** [October 15, 2026, 8:57pm UTC](https://forum.inaturalist.org/t/search-users-by-email-not-working/85779/4 "2026-10-15T20:57:28Z")

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OK, that text has been removed from the field, at least in English. It will take some time for translators to update the new text string, and for that string to be pushed to the site.