at some level, you have to trust the providers of the services and products you use. if you don’t trust them, then you shouldn’t use them. any third-party app that goes through iNat’s OAuth processes will get basically unlimited access to your account, and flows where the third party developer stores the access token on their end will basically have unlimited access until you revoke application access in your iNat account settings.
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@pisum hit the nail on the head. iNaturalist’s OAuth access isn’t granular enough for you to grant iNatifier access to some parts of your account but technically prevent access to private messages. So there is necessarily an element of trust with any third-party application using that authorization.
What I can control is what iNatifier actually does with that access. It does not store private-message subjects or bodies, and I intend to keep it that way. You can also revoke iNatifier’s authorization at any time from iNaturalist Account Settings → External Applications.
For me personally, getting a push notification or badge on my phone when a new iNaturalist message arrives transforms the iNat message system into a much more useful tool for my workflow when I need to communicate with another iNaturalist member.
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One more thing I should have mentioned in my last update -
There’s still room for more people in the iNatifier beta if anyone would like to try it.
I’m keeping access invite-only for now while I continue testing usability, reliability and API usage with a small group, but I would be happy to add more users.
If you’re interested, just reply here or send me a private message, and I’ll send you an invitation link.
The invite link is only needed for the initial setup. After that, you sign in normally with your iNaturalist account.
I’d especially be interested in hearing from people who regularly identify other people’s observations, since iNatifier now includes Others activity in addition to notifications on your own observations and messages.
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Major feature updates for iNatifier:
- New Followers — get notified when someone new follows you on iNaturalist.
- Mentions — iNatifier recognizes when you’re mentioned in a comment, including when a comment is later edited to add your username.
- ID relationships — see whether a new identification agrees with, disagrees with, refines, or broadens your identification.
- Extensive inbox filters — zero in on exactly the activity you want to see with detailed filtering options.
- Granular push settings — choose which kinds of activity should generate push notifications. For example, you could configure iNatifier to send pushes only for messages, mentions, and disagreeing IDs.
There is still room for more users in the beta. If you would like to give it a try, please reply here or send me a private message. Your feedback is deeply appreciated.
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I’ve just been trying out these new features and they look like being a real gamechanger, especially the possibility of being able to browse notifications by category (agree, refine, broaden, disagree). I haven’t had a chance to explore the full potential yet, but I’m thoroughly enjoying it so far… thanks!
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Up till now I’ve been using iNatifier on my PC, but I tried it on Android yesterday and it works perfectly on that as well. It even pulls out comments embedded in IDs, something which has always been particularly tricky until now. The possibility of separating out disagreements is a real timesaver. A big thankyou for the amazing amount of work you’ve put into this, it’s already making my ID work significantly easier 
.
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A question for people who do a lot of identifying: iNaturalist can generate notifications when someone adds or changes an Observation Field value on an observation you’re following.
How often do you actually see those? Is it generally an occasional useful notification, or do you get large bursts of them from a project or particular workflow?
I’m looking at whether iNatifier should include these and I am trying to get a handle on expected volume especially for heavy IDers.
Also, thank you @lynkos for your generous feedback!
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relatively few people use observation fields to begin with, and it should be relatively rare for someone to change another person’s observation field value. that said, for people who are adding tons of observation fields, notifications of changes could be something that they are very interested in.
I personally consult observation fields extremely rarely, so I probably wouldn’t use this function. Maybe it’s more useful for people working with projects and such like.
@cesar_stastny A good addition to the browser version (https://jumear.github.io/stirfry/iNat_observations_updates.html) is adding a column stating whether an identification (if it is an id) is an agreement/disgareement/refined id etc.
Thanks for the helpful feedback on observations fields. Much appreciated.
@aaravmishra iNatifier actually does classify IDs as agreement, disagreement, refinement, or broadening whenever the ID relation can be confidently determined. You can easily filter your inbox by any of these categories (to see just disagreement IDs for example). And you can also adjust notification settings to only send push notifications for the categories you care about.
Hi, how can I test the tool? thanks
To be clear - just in case there is any confusion - the link referenced in the post above is not iNatifier. It is a different tool by a different author. It is not the subject of this thread.
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invite sent via DM.
which tool is that because someone referred to this post and that tool/
The “someone” was me 
. Actually I mentioned two tools and two separate posts, this one for iNatifier and this one for the Notifications Web Browser.
Another iNatifier beta update — new features and screenshots
I’ve continued working on iNatifier, and wanted to share a few more improvements and some screenshots of the current interface.
What’s new:
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Observation Fields notifications — iNatifier now detects changes to observation fields on your observations, with an optional push notification setting.
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Configurable check frequency — you can now choose whether iNatifier checks for new activity every 15 minutes, 30 minutes, hourly, or daily. It also automatically reduces checking frequency during long periods of inactivity to conserve iNaturalist API resources, returning to your selected frequency when you’re active again.
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On-demand refresh — there’s now a Refresh button for checking for new activity without waiting for the next scheduled check, subject to a cooldown.
I’ve also continued improving reliability, performance, and the handling of notifications across devices.
The screenshots below show some of the features I’ve described in previous updates, including the inbox filters and the ability to choose exactly which kinds of activity generate push notifications.
The inbox, with identification relationship filtering:
Push notification settings:
Check frequency settings:
iNatifier is still free, non-commercial, and in invite-only beta. I’m continuing to test reliability and API usage before opening it more widely.
There’s still room for additional beta testers. If you’d like to try it, please reply here or send me a private message.
Thanks again to everyone who has offered feedback and suggestions. They’ve been genuinely helpful in shaping the tool.
-cesar-
Just getting better and better .
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