Gift It
One gift list on everybody's phone
A shared gift list means everyone buying for the same person is looking at the same list — and the moment one of you claims a gift, the other one knows. In Gift It you share one person, not your whole app, and nothing is visible to the other side until they accept.
The duplicate-scarf problem
Whenever two or more people buy for the same person — siblings buying for a parent, a friend group covering a birthday, a couple handling both families — the same two failures happen. Either two of you buy the same thing, or everyone assumes someone else has it handled and nobody buys anything. Both come from the same cause: each buyer has a private list and no view of anyone else's.
A shared gift list fixes it by making there be exactly one list. Not a group chat where ideas scroll away, not a spreadsheet nobody opens — the same list, in the same app everyone already plans in, kept in sync.
You share a person, not your app
This distinction matters more than it sounds. Your gift planner knows things that are nobody else's business — what you are spending on your partner, what you have planned for the friend who is also in the group chat. So Gift It shares at the level of one person's list. Open whoever you are both buying for and send it; every other person you have saved stays exactly where it was, on your phone.
The invite goes to a username — the name they picked in their own You tab, so you never need their email — or out as a link for someone who would rather tap than be searched for. The link lands them straight on the list, and you can replace it at any time, which kills the old one.
Nothing is visible until they say yes
On the other phone, the invite arrives as a question: the person's name under "Shared with you", with Accept and Decline underneath. Until they accept, there is nothing to see — not the ideas, not the budget, not what anybody has spent. A shared list is something both sides walked into, not something done to one of them.
Claims are how it stays one list
Every idea on a shared list carries an "I'll get this". Tap it and the claim syncs: the scarf that read as free on your phone now reads "Jess is getting this" on everyone else's. Ideas the other person adds show up the same way — pottery class, Jess added this — so it stays one list rather than two people quietly buying the same thing.
That is the whole trick. Not chat, not comments, not a feed — just a list that tells the truth about who is doing what, updated the moment anyone acts.
Questions people ask
What exactly gets shared?
One person's list — the ideas, the budget, who is getting what. Everyone else you have saved in the app stays private to you. Sharing is per person, never the whole app.
How do I invite someone?
Two ways: send the person to their username — the name they picked in their own You tab, so you never need their email — or send them a link that lands straight on the list. 'Replace this link' kills the old link whenever you want.
Can they see anything before accepting?
No. The invite arrives as a question, with Accept and Decline. Until they accept there is nothing to see — not the ideas, not the budget, not what anybody has spent.
How does claiming a gift work?
Every idea on a shared list has an 'I'll get this' against it. When Jess taps it on the scarf, Tom's phone shows the scarf as 'Jess is getting this'. Ideas the other person adds show up the same way, marked as theirs.
Can I remove someone from a shared list?
Yes. 'Who's in' sits at the bottom of the shared person's screen — everyone on this one list, with a Remove against each of them.
Do we both need accounts?
Sharing is the one part of Gift It that needs a sign-in, because the list has to live somewhere both phones can reach. Everything else in the app works without an account.