Flickr Email, URL, and NSID: Explained

Posted Wednesday, February 25, 2009 10:14:08 AM

People are often quite confused about Flickr and their various methods of identification. I will attempt to explain here what each item in Flickr is, and what it is used for.

First off, lets just name everything you have inside your Flickr account, you have a sign-in email address, a contact email address, a username, a personalized URL, and an NSID. Most people don't realize that your sign-in email and contact email aren't always the same, and that your username is in no way correlated to your Flickr personalized URL.

Your Flickr Sign-in Email:	This is the email address you sign into your Flickr Account with.
Your Flickr Contact Email:	This is the email address actually listed on your Flickr profile as a means of contact. (See Pic #2)
Your Flickr Username:	This is how you are identified by Flickr, and this is what others will see when you post to the Flickr Forums or leave comments. You can edit your username as any time. (See Pic #1)
Your Flickr Personalized URL:	This the URL of your profile and photos. As you'll see in Pic #1, this can be the same as your username, but it doesn't have to be. Once you have chosen your Flickr URL, you cannot change it. Ever.
Your Flickr NSID:	Your NSID is a unique identifier that Flickr uses to associate all of your photos, settings, etc. This number is also used by default for your Flickr personalized URL until you choose a more user-friendly one. If you'd like to know what your NSID is, you can use this tool I created: What Is My Flickr ID?

Pic #1	Pic #2

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There are 9 comments on this article

Adam Lewis (15 years ago)

Chris:

You can use the Flickr API system to obtain Flickr username's from inside an application. That is how my tool is programmed. You can read about it here: http://www.flickr.com/services/api/

If you have any problems or questions, I'd be glad to help, just let me know!

Chris (15 years ago)

Is there a way i can get the flickr from a username inside my application? programatically? i.e. without visiting your page.