Gift It
Gift list app or a spreadsheet?
A spreadsheet is genuinely better for one thing — arithmetic across a lot of rows — and worse at the three things that actually make gift tracking fail: it cannot remind you, it is awkward on a phone at the moment an idea occurs to you, and two people editing the same file is how duplicate presents happen. If your list is short and you enjoy spreadsheets, keep it. Here is the honest comparison either way.
Where the spreadsheet genuinely wins
Arithmetic. Totals, sums by person, sums by occasion, percentage of budget spent, a column comparing this year to last. If you want to know what Christmas cost you across four years, a spreadsheet answers that and an app generally does not.
You already have it set up. A system you have used for three Christmases and understand is worth more than a better system you have to learn in November.
It bends to anything. Add a column for wrapping paper colour, or postage, or whose turn it is. No app will let you do that.
These are real advantages and we are not going to argue you out of them. If the list is short, the spreadsheet is fine.
Where it falls over
It cannot tell you anything. This is the big one. A spreadsheet is passive — it waits to be opened. The failure mode of gift planning is not bad record-keeping, it is remembering on the day, and a file that never speaks cannot prevent that. Gift It nudges a week out and again the night before, saying what is still to buy or wrap.
It is wrong for the moment ideas arrive. Ideas do not occur at a desk. They occur when someone mentions a thing in passing, and you have about two seconds to capture it before the conversation moves. Opening a spreadsheet app, finding the file, finding the row and typing into a cell is not a two-second action. Two taps against a name is.
Shared editing is where duplicates come from. A shared sheet only prevents a double-buy if both people update it before they buy, which is exactly the moment nobody is thinking about the spreadsheet. This is the single most common way two siblings end up giving the same present.
It has no sense of progress. A row saying “scarf” does not distinguish between an idea you had, a thing you bought, a thing you wrapped and a thing you handed over. Which means the sheet cannot tell you whether you are actually ready.
The four states thing
Worth pulling out on its own, because it is the difference between a list and a plan. In Gift It every idea moves through four states: idea, bought, wrapped, given. Each person’s page shows how far you have got with them.
The value is not the tidiness. It is that on the 20th of December the app can tell you the two things still unwrapped, rather than showing you forty rows and leaving you to work it out. A spreadsheet can hold a status column; it cannot act on one.
Sharing, properly
Sharing a spreadsheet means sharing the whole spreadsheet — everyone you buy for, everything you spent, including the people the other person is not involved with.
Gift It shares one person. You open whoever you are both buying for and send it to a username; everyone else you have saved stays where it was. They accept before anything is visible, and until they do there is nothing to see — not the ideas, not the budget, not what anybody spent.
Then claiming becomes live: Jess taps “I’ll get this” on the scarf, and on Tom’s phone the scarf now reads “Jess is getting this.” More on that in one gift list on everybody’s phone.
An honest recommendation
Stay with the spreadsheet if you buy for fewer than about six people, you are the only person involved, and you like doing the sums.
Move if you have been ambushed by a date at least once, if more than one of you buys for the same person, or if you keep having ideas in October and losing them by December.
Gift It is free to use without an account, and nothing you save leaves your phone until you sign in and choose to share a list — so trying it does not cost you the spreadsheet.
Questions people ask
Is a spreadsheet good enough for tracking gifts?
For a handful of people, yes. A spreadsheet handles names, ideas, prices and a running total perfectly well. It starts failing when the list gets long enough that you cannot hold it in your head, or when more than one person needs to see it, because neither reminders nor real-time sharing are things a spreadsheet does.
What does a gift list app do that a spreadsheet cannot?
Three things. It notifies you before the date rather than waiting to be opened. It is usable in the two seconds after someone mentions something they want. And on a shared list it shows who has claimed what, live, so two people cannot buy the same present.
How do I stop two people buying the same present?
You need a shared list where claiming is visible. In Gift It, every idea on a shared list has an 'I'll get this' against it — the moment one person taps it, the other person's phone shows who is getting it. A spreadsheet can approximate this with a column, but only if everyone remembers to update it before they buy.
Can I still track a budget in an app?
Yes. Gift It holds a budget per person and shows what is left of it, which is the version of the arithmetic that actually changes a decision. What it does not do is arbitrary formulas across the whole sheet — if you need that, use a spreadsheet.
Can I move my spreadsheet into Gift It?
Not as an import. You add people and ideas as you go. In practice most people do not migrate a whole spreadsheet — they start with the next occasion coming up and the old sheet quietly stops being opened.
Is a gift list app private?
It depends on the app, so it is worth checking. Gift It works without an account and nothing you save leaves your phone until you sign in and choose to share a specific person's list.