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Is there a way to re-send an invitation to an external tester on Apple's TestFlight Beta Testing service?

(I am referring to facility for external beta testing accessed via iTunes Connect, not to the standalone TestFlight service that has been provided since before Apple acquired it.)

Within iTunes Connect, under My Apps / Prerelease / External Testers, the tester's status just shows itself as "Invited". Unfortunately, this tester had a hyperactive spam filter that simply deletes all spam, so he cannot access the original invitation. And I cannot find any control on the TestFlight UI to re-send it. I have tried turning testing off and on, but this doesn't seem to help.

algal
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5 Answers5

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Try removing the tester and re-adding them:

Click the 'edit' button at to top-right of the testers table, and remove the tester:

enter image description here

Then add them back. This should resend the invite email.

// UPDATE: The interface has changed somewhat, though the process remains the same. Now after removing the external user, you must hit "save". Then add them, and hit "save" again.

Kaolin Fire
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Undo
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    Tried a couple of times but still no luck... – manosim Feb 10 '15 at 22:13
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    same as @iamemmanouil .. going to do a report https://bugreport.apple.com/ this is serious stuff – Jaimoto Feb 28 '15 at 00:32
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    This has worked for me, but it's annoying not have a "resend" button. – Andrew Smith Mar 05 '15 at 01:29
  • Sometimes it is difficult to find 'Edit' button – fnc12 Mar 07 '15 at 03:34
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    I would prefer to be able to re-send to a bunch of people at once. – Dan Loughney Mar 15 '15 at 20:32
  • Would be nice if Apple didn't use an historically phished email address as the sole platform of distribution for my test builds. https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=itunesstore+email+address+spam+listed&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#rls=en&q=itunesstore+email+address+phish – darkheartfelt Apr 01 '15 at 16:58
  • Defintly there is a problem wit invitation emails. I tried with 3 email addresses already and none receives the invitaction, what can I do? – Sebastián Rojas Apr 23 '15 at 23:53
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    @SebastiánRojasR I am waiting for the invitation email too. I read from Apple documentation, "Before you can invite external testers, the build must be approved by Beta App Review. Click Submit For Beta App Review to begin the Beta App Review process. The first build for a prerelease version submitted to Beta App Review requires a full review. Later builds for the same version may not require full review." For more info : https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/iTunesConnect_Guide/Chapters/BetaTestingTheApp.html – Honey H May 15 '15 at 08:30
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    @SebastiánRojas Well that's good to know, considering that the beta app review is entirely "optional". Apple really f***ed this service up, it used to work so well... – mpowered Jun 24 '15 at 19:37
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    In the new iTunes Connect interface it's even harder to do: first, you should delete external users from curtain build. Next, go to 'Users and Roles' > 'TestFlight Beta Testers' > 'External' and delete users you want to resend invites to. After that add them as new external users to your build. After that new invites will be sent to them. – Amoneron Oct 18 '15 at 14:47
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    What @Amoneron said. Doing this (remove and readd) through the Users and Roles page and NOT the App's TestFlight page is what did the trick for me. – kball Nov 17 '15 at 22:03
  • This worked for me. Go in and remove yourself from the external testing list and save. Then re-add yourself and save again. I got the email invite. – Hahnemann Dec 21 '15 at 22:58
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    Remember to save after removing external testers before trying to re-add them. – Doug Voss Apr 04 '16 at 22:12
  • @Dan Loughney Remove your entire External Tester group, then add them again. Notifications are resent. – RedHotPawn.com May 18 '17 at 09:40
  • Genius, thank you, never thought of that, it worked perfectly for me – Echelon Nov 17 '17 at 11:24
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    Removing users for my use case was also very time consuming so I created a JS script to run from the developer tools console that will simulate the clicks for you... https://gist.github.com/marcferna/da60eb1b374a39f844889656ba609fb7 – marc_ferna Oct 22 '18 at 22:00
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Its a bit old query but the issue is still there. I have found an easy way out to resend the invites. All you need to do is to follow these steps:

  1. Click on "Not available for Testing" and Save
  2. Click on the Build that you want to test again. Save and Press Start Testing.

It will send invite to all the users. Hope that helps

AnR
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  • A combination of the accepted answer and this one worked for me. First I removed and re-added myself from the external tester list. Then I removed the build and re-added it. It works! What a pain though! – Hahnemann Sep 21 '16 at 04:53
  • For the latest testflight check my answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/45128098/1600061 – Zsivics Sanel Jul 16 '17 at 11:38
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If you invited yourself as an 'external' tester via a different email address, you can forward that email to the actual beta tester. It states:

You can accept this invitation with the Apple ID that you are currently using. Your Apple ID and the email address to which the invite was sent don't have to match.

Caveat: back in iTunes Connect, YOUR email will show up as having 'Accepted' the invite, even if the Apple ID of the accepted device is associated with the original beta tester's email.

Scott Lawton
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Apparently there's a huge brain-fart in Apples interface for signing up external testers:

Name and Lastname are listed as "optional", but if you leave them out, it looks like the invite is not being send (or maybe the mail gets formatted in a way so that it bounces for some recipients, I don't know, but after trying two different e-mails 5 times each with no luck, it finally worked for both when I added name and lastname).

N.J.
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    I think this is just a coincidence. I always use full names and many of my invites are not going out – kball Nov 17 '15 at 20:33
  • If the user misses them for any reason --- spam box, not noticing, not clicking, etc --- then you have this problem. I'm not saying it's impossible that the emails are not being sent, but my guess is that they are. – Dan Rosenstark Jun 14 '16 at 17:52
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Note that you can now resend invites easily through Itunes Connect:

iTunes Connect > My Apps > Your App > TestFlight

iTunes Connect > My Apps > Your App > TestFlight

georgehbr
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