Getting started
From signing in to your first shared list, in about five minutes.
1. Sign in
There's no separate password to invent. Sign in with an email address and the site sends you on your way. If someone invited you to a circle, use the same address the invitation went to and you'll be joined up automatically.
2. Make a list
Go to Lists and create one. Give it a name that says what it's for — "Christmas", "My birthday", "Baby shower". You can have as many as you like, and an empty list is fine; you can add to it whenever something occurs to you.
Then add gifts. Only a name is required. Everything else — a link, a size, a price range, how many you'd like — is there to save your circle from guessing, so it's worth a minute each.
3. Start a circle, or join one
A circle is the group you'll share with. Go to Circles, create one, and invite people by email. They'll get a link; when they accept, they're in.
If you were invited to someone else's circle, you'll find it waiting on that same page.
4. Share the list with the circle
Sharing is a deliberate, separate step — making a list doesn't show it to anyone. You can share from three places, whichever you happen to be looking at:
- the Sharing Center, which shows everything you have and everywhere it's shared
- the list itself, under Share with a circle
- the circle's page, which lists what's been shared there
Now the people in that circle can see the list. You still can't see what any of them reserve on it.
5. That's the loop
From here, the things worth reading next are surprise protection — how claiming a gift works from both sides — and the gift log, which is where most people end up living in December.
Still stuck, or spotted something wrong? Get in touch — a real person reads it.