Review Insights · Google Play
iNaturalist
iNaturalist · 11,461 ratings · ★ 3.8
3.8
★★★★★
11,461 ratings
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Top complaints - extracted from 34 negative reviews
Recurring phrases mined from 1-2★ reviews. The bigger the percentage, the more users have the same problem. Fix the top 2-3 in your version and you have product-market fit on day one.
1
"observations"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I love this app and use it daily, but as my observations and identifications go up its become virtually unusable. Nothing loads. Its minutes between each post. So much time is just spent watching the little loading arrow spin." - R
2
"unusable"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "I love this app and use it daily, but as my observations and identifications go up its become virtually unusable. Nothing loads. Its minutes between each post. So much time is just spent watching the little loading arrow spin." - R
3
"plants"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Doing plant ID on this app is cumbersome compared to PlantNet. Even many common plants are not identified. Even after providing my geographical location it may revert to giving results from around the world. Not impressed." - Abner's Buick & Ice Cream Memory Shop
4
"crashes"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "Amazing potential, but... It crashes so frequently it's practically unusable, especially when trying to suggest an ID. I basically only use it for uploading. Update: App is still garbage. Tried to ID an observation 10 times with the app fai…" - Steven Røste
5
"photo"
4 negative reviews mention this · 12% of all complaints
★★★★★ "April 2026 - still seeing the same behavior as below. January 2024 - I'm frequently seeing the observation tiles displaying the wrong photo. If I scroll down and let tiles below load then scroll back up the correct photos are then back in t…" - Clayton Borzini
📋 All 34 negative reviews
Every 1-2★ review we fetched. Use the copy button to grab them all for your own analysis (paste into ChatGPT/Claude with a prompt like "summarize core user problems, group by theme, ignore bugs, focus on missing features").
I love this app and use it daily, but as my observations and identifications go up its become virtually unusable. Nothing loads. Its minutes between each post. So much time is just spent watching the little loading arrow spin.
As much as I love the website, the app leaves much to be desired. I can essentially only post observations - attempting to see other posts, check notifications, edit observations, or anything else causes the app to immediately freeze and crash. I really wish it was more stable, I use the website all the time! I've changed phones too, and the problem continues...
Amazing potential, but... It crashes so frequently it's practically unusable, especially when trying to suggest an ID. I basically only use it for uploading. Update: App is still garbage. Tried to ID an observation 10 times with the app failing to process the ID. Then it froze and I had to force it to stop. I believe the problem is their image caching doesn't clear often enough.
April 2026 - still seeing the same behavior as below. January 2024 - I'm frequently seeing the observation tiles displaying the wrong photo. If I scroll down and let tiles below load then scroll back up the correct photos are then back in their place.
I need an app that identifies the plant I see, not one that asks me to check which one I think took a photo of.
not ready. have piture of plant - can't allow identification
I love the concept. I love the citizen science aspect. However the app is very sick; Why the heck does this app insist on changing the location to a different place than what I've specified (somewhere within a mile or so of where I chose) every single time in every different location? Additionally why the heck does it take 2 goes every single time to choose the correct folder for file/picture location. I've tried restarting; clearing the cache, but nothing helps & this is all driving me crazy
It's actually spyware just like most "free" apps.
Not useful or helpful , not to mention that I feel foolish like maybe like taking a picture of a mushroom and saying i've just spotted mushrooms when nobody's gonna notice or care. there is no community and the opt developers don't respond to any requests.
too hard to use... not user friendly.
Difficult to use. Not intuitive at all. Too much work and no answers.
I was excited to use this app after seeing it on Sunday morning but I don't like the fact that it wants access to my photo library. That's a big no for me.
if you like to watch a loading spinner, this app is for you! It does nothing else.
slowest app to load that I've ever used. saw this on CBS Sunday morning and maybe everyone else downloaded it at the same time, but Jesus none of the pages are loading.
absolutely unusable. just spins and spins. if your lucky you might get to the next step so you can continue to.... spin and spin.... uninstalled.
really bad app ios has a good app this one seems like it was made when the dinosaurs were walking constant bugs and crashes
Need to fix the pictures uploading at the wrong orientation problem that has been going on for literal YEARS now. It's a little buggy here and there otherwise but boring huge, and otherwise a great app. Disappointing this could be left unhandled so long
questionable authority and anyone can be banned without justification by a curator examples of these cases can be found online or the subreddit
doesn't work
I have location on, yet every time I try to search near by it says I need to enable location services....which are enabled
Now the map won't ever load 🤬 No updates in 7 months no wonder it won't work PLEASEEEEEEE fix the crashes it's becoming impossible to use. I notice a lot less people on it lately and no wonder. this is really sad :-( ( ...and Why does it keep reloading (screen goes white and often goes to previous activity) when you are right in the middle of id or typing ARGH. So SLOW to open, load info etc. Buggy , crashes.
broke
Crashes constantly and suspended my account twice yet can't communicate with me, nor tell me why they are so against me. I am a botanist and I deserve to be able to use these new tools and contribute to what is known instead of being completely locked out in the cold. Horrible people who don't care about others apparently nor the environment- if they are against the scientist who observes it they throw out all observations- and that is not science but politics or religion!
App keeps crashing and is completely unusable. Glitched and made me spam an observation
this app desperately needs dark mode. please add dark mode.
STAY AWAY!!! iNaturalist has accepted a grant that requires them to create a model using generative AI. Despite considerable backlash from the community, they have gone through with this model. Your pictures & identifications WILL be used for AI slop without your consent if they do not course correct soon. A year ago, I would've said the leadership would do the right thing because they've been trustworthy in the past, but they have been incredibly tight-lipped & shady about accepting this grant.
can't delete misclick IDs in app anymore. iNaturalist is great, but the app has never been. Now they are taking away even more feature from the app, but it hasn't helped with the bugs. The website remains the only functional way to use iNaturalist.
it could be something huge but it's not and it will be full of trash very soon. I could live with the poor app (ispot is much worse) which gives a glimpse into natural world all over the World. but it lacks the possibility to report a spam, animal abuse and appearing recently.... women pics. so basically they have the same standards and goals like FB, Instagram. how on earth we can use it for a school project? You can't keep insects wings or take fish on the sand to make a photo fgs!
Doing plant ID on this app is cumbersome compared to PlantNet. Even many common plants are not identified. Even after providing my geographical location it may revert to giving results from around the world. Not impressed.
Terrible memory leak. Have no idea why an app sharing photos of plants and animals could eat so much memory. Checking 50 activities made it crash 3 times
ya kinda trash. it can't even identify my cat or our ordinary house plants.... sad. I expected more.
map is a pain to use much better results ok other apps
website is phenomenonal but the app needs serious revisions as it keeps kicking me out and displaying observations as the wrong animal despite all identifiers agreeing on one specific animal I can't leave my own observations and profile on the app otherwise it kicks me out
What happened? Why aren't species suggestions working anymore (at least on Android)? I have like 4 species of plants I want to identify and there just are simply no suggestions showing up. This is very sad and dissapointing as I rely on iNaturalist for species identification and I also have donated every year as well...can someone just explain what is going on? If so, I will gladly change my review!!
Sentiment summary
65%
Positive (4-5★)
10%
Neutral (3★)
25%
Negative (1-2★)