Wikipedia requires that users confirm their email addresses before they can use email features. This helps to prevent problems with bad addresses, such as bounced replies or spam. You only need to confirm email addresses to use the email system; you can login and edit pages as normal without confirming your address. You are not even required to enter an e-mail address at all to register; it remains completely optional. (However, administrators are expected to have a confirmed email address.)

Contents 1 Confirmation 1.1 Status 1.2 How to confirm 1.3 Known issues

Confirmation

Status

You can check your address confirmation status in your preferences. If your account was registered prior to March 2, 2006 (when confirmation was enforced), your existing address (if any) has not been automatically confirmed. Accounts on multiple wikis will need to be confirmed individually. If you change your email address, you will automatically be sent a new confirmation email.

How to confirm

1. From your preferences, go to the section entitled User profile, and scroll down to Email, if desired check the box next to Enable e-mail from other users.
2. Click the button in that section; an email will be sent to your email address with a confirmation link. If you see no link, go to Special:ConfirmEmail. If that page starts with "Your e-mail address was confirmed on <date>", then you're already confirmed.
3. When you receive the email, click the link it contains to confirm that you own the email address.

Known issues

• E-mail addresses are not checked to be properly formatted when they are stored in the database (see bug 959). Users should verify that their email address is functional before entering it.

• If you do not receive the confirmation email, check with your mail provider and mail software to see if the message was blocked as "spam". If you are unable to receive the mail with your normal mail service then you can try another, for example one of the free webmails in comparison of webmail providers.

• Some email programs may break the confirmation link into two lines. If that happens, please copy all parts of the link together into the browser address bar.