Accept an Invitation as an Archive Member

Accept an Invitation as an Archive Member

Archive owners can add members to their archive so that family, friends, and colleagues can view the archive and collaborate on adding materials, organizing the archive, and describing materials. An archive member is someone who has access to another archive owned by someone else and has certain permissions to perform actions on files in that archive depending on their role. Learn more about archive members here.

If you have been invited to an archive by a friend, family member, or colleague, follow the instructions below to accept the invitation.

Accepting an invitation without a Permanent Account

If you have been invited to an archive but you do not yet have a Permanent account, welcome to Permanent! You should have received an email with an invitation to join Permanent and join the archive you've been to invited to.



When you receive the email, click the Collaborate button or copy the URL in the email into your browser. You will be taken to the Permanent app in your browser, where you can sign up for a Permanent account. Creating an account on Permanent is free.



We are currently making changes to the way that new members create their account and accept pending archive member invitations. If you encounter something different than these instructions after entering your account information, that is normal and expected. Please reach out to support@permanent.org if you have any questions or concerns.

Once you have created your account, you will be taken to your first archive. Your first archive is named after you and is a Person archive. Learn more about archive types here. 

To accept your archive invitation, navigate to your Account Menu by clicking on your email address in the top right corner of your screen, then click Archives.



A new window to manage your archives will appear. Click the Pending Archives tab on the left side of the window. Any archive invitations that are pending will be listed on this screen, along with the access level you have been assigned. Learn more about access roles here.



To accept an invitation, click Accept. If you wish to decline the invitation, click the Decline button.

Once you have accepted the invitation, you will be taken back to the Switch Archives tab of your My Archives window. From here, you can switch to a different archive, set your default archive, create a new archive, or delete an archive.

Accepting an invitation with a Permanent account

If you are already a member of Permanent, you will receive an email notification when someone invites you to join their archive.



Click the "Check it Out" button to navigate to the Permanent app, or copy and paste the URL from the email into your browser. If you are not already logged into Permanent, you will be taken to the login screen. 

Once you are logged into Permanent, you will see a notification in the Activity Feed on the top bar of your workspace to the left of your Account Menu. The Activity Feed indicates that there is a notification with a red circle at the top of the icon.



Click on the Activity Feed button to open it, then click on the invitation notification. The My Archives window will open, where you can manage your archives and pending invitations.



Alternatively, you can navigate to the My Archives window by going to your Account Menu in the top right corner of your screen, then clicking Archives. To find all pending invitations to archives, click the Pending Archives tab.



In the Pending Archives tab, you can accept or decline any pending invitations to archives and see your access level to that archive. Learn more about access roles here. To accept an invitation, click Accept. If you wish to decline the invitation, click the Decline button.

Once you have accepted the invitation, you will be taken back to the Switch Archives tab of your My Archives window. From here, you can switch to a different archiveset your default archivecreate a new archive, or delete an archive.


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