How to Create a Shared Shopping List (Four Routes, Start to Finish)

Quick answer: put the list somewhere both phones can write to, then invite the other person. Four routes work. A shared note in Google Keep or Apple Notes takes about two minutes and costs nothing. A dedicated list app — OurGroceries, AnyList, Bring! — adds aisle grouping and takes about five. A family organizer skips the sharing step, because the list already belongs to the household. Paper still works if you photograph it.

The question behind "how do I create a shared shopping list" is almost never technical. Every route below is easy. What people are actually choosing between is who has to install something, who pays, and whether the list survives the first week.

So this page gives you the steps for each route, then the two things that decide which one you should take: how many people it has to hold, and whether both phone platforms are in the house.

Route 1: A Shared Note — Two Minutes, No Money

The fastest thing that works. You already have the app.

On Google Keep (iPhone, Android and the web, free, no paid tier):

1. Open Keep and start a new note.
2. Turn the note into a checklist, so items get tick boxes instead of lines of text.
3. Add three or four staples so the note is not empty when the other person opens it.
4. Use the note's collaborator option and enter the other person's Google address.
5. They get the note in their own Keep. Either of you can add, tick and untick.

On Apple Notes or Reminders (iPhone, iPad and Mac only):

1. Make a new note or a new list.
2. Add the items as a checklist.
3. Share it and pick the people from your contacts.
4. Set the permission so they can make changes, not just look.

The Apple route is the smoothest of the two if every phone in the house is an iPhone. If one is not, it is a dead end rather than a compromise: Apple does not publish Reminders or Notes on Google Play, so there is no Android half of this route to set up.

What you give up on this route: no aisle grouping, no repeat-item suggestions, and no separate lists for different shops without making separate notes. For a two-person household buying a normal weekly shop, that is often nothing you will miss.

Route 2: A Dedicated List App — Five Minutes, Usually Free

This is where most households end up, and the good news is that it is the cheapest software category in the house.

The steps are the same in all of them:

1. Install the app on the phone that will do most of the shopping.
2. Create an account with an email address. Do not skip this. Several of these apps will let you use a list anonymously on one device, and an anonymous list cannot be shared, cannot be recovered and disappears with the phone.
3. Create the list and name it after the shop, not after the week — "Aldi", not "This Week".
4. Invite the other people by email address from inside the app.
5. Have them install the app and accept.
6. Add ten staples immediately, before anyone leaves. An empty list gets ignored; a list with the milk already on it gets used.

Three worth knowing, with what they cost:

OurGroceries asks nothing for the part you came for. Its user guide states that upgrading "is not required in order to use OurGroceries, including all features and list sharing", and that you can share with as many people as you want. The upgrade — about US$1 a month, US$6 a year or US$20 once — removes the advertising, and removes it for everyone you share with, not only for you. Read on 31 August 2026.

AnyList is free to create and share lists; AnyList Complete is $9.99 a year for one person or $14.99 a year for a household, and that is what buys the Mac and web versions and unlimited recipe importing from the web. Read on anylist.com/complete, 31 August 2026.

Bring! is free with advertising, with Premium priced on its App Store listing at $1.99 a month or $8.99 a year. What Premium unlocks is not stated on Bring!'s own site, so check inside the app before paying.

Route 3: A Household Space — No Sharing Step at All

If the shopping list is one of four things going wrong — the calendar, the chores, the meals and the list — a separate list app adds a fifth app to a household that already has too many.

In a family organizer the list is not shared with anyone. It belongs to the household, and everyone in the household already has it.

In Homsy the sequence is:

1. Create the household on the first phone.
2. Send the join link to the other adults; a child with no phone can be a named member without one.
3. Open the shopping list. It is already visible to everyone who joined.
4. Add items with a quantity and a unit, and drag them into the order you walk the shop.
5. Tick them off while shopping. Everyone else sees each item go.

Since version 1.0.15 the meal plan feeds the list: put a recipe on Thursday and its ingredients arrive on the shopping list. That is the step a standalone list app cannot do, because it does not know what Thursday looks like.

The honest gap: Homsy has no aisle categories. There is no produce/dairy/frozen grouping, because there is no category field on a list item — you sort the list by hand into the order you walk the shop. If shopping by store section is the feature you came for, AnyList and OurGroceries do it properly and Homsy does not. The free plan carries 2 lists and 2 members; a third member, or a third list, is $19.99 a year.

Route 4: Paper, Photographed

Worth saying out loud, because a household that has already abandoned two apps is not going to keep the third one.

Print a list with the staples already on it, keep it on the fridge, and photograph it on the way out of the door. The photograph is the sharing mechanism: it goes in the message thread, and the person at the shop reads it there. Our free printable grocery checklist prints the staples in aisle order with a tick box on every line.

It fails in exactly one way — anything added after the photograph is invisible — and for a single weekly shop that failure rarely arrives.

Which Route, in One Table

Prices from each vendor's own pages; OurGroceries and AnyList re-read 31 August 2026, the rest 23 August 2026. The full field, with how many people rate each one and how recently each was updated, is on our best shared grocery list apps comparison.

The Two Decisions That Actually Matter

How many people. Two adults can use anything on this page. A third adult is where the caps bite, and they bite in odd places — Flipp, which plenty of people use as a list app for its offers, shares one list between two accounts only, so a third person is not an upgrade, it is impossible. OurGroceries has no cap at all on its free tier. Homsy's free plan stops at 2 members.

Which phones. If one phone in the house is an Android, the Apple route is out. That is the whole decision, and it is worth making before you spend twenty minutes setting up a list nobody else can open.

After It Exists: The Four Ways It Dies

Creating the list is ten minutes. Keeping it is the part that fails, and it fails the same four ways in every household: only one person adds to it, sync gives out inside the shop, the items are in no useful order, and the staples vanish the moment they are bought. Why shared grocery lists stop working covers the fix for each one.

The short version, in the first week:

• Add items the second you notice. Not later. Later is where the list loses.
• Stop acting on texts. If a request arrives by message, the honest answer is "put it on the list". It is uncomfortable for about a week.
• Be specific. "Chicken" sends somebody back to the shop. "2 lbs boneless chicken breast" does not.
• Order it the way you walk. Organising the list by store section is what turns a 60-minute trip into a 30-minute one.

FAQ

How do I create a shared shopping list?

Pick one place the list will live, add a handful of items, then invite the other people to it. The three routes that work are a shared checklist note in Google Keep or Apple Notes, which is free and takes about two minutes; a dedicated list app such as OurGroceries or AnyList, which adds aisle grouping and takes about five; and a family organizer, where the list belongs to the household and there is no sharing step at all. Create an account rather than using the app anonymously — an anonymous list cannot be shared or recovered.

How do I create a shared shopping list between an iPhone and an Android?

Use anything except Apple's own apps. Google Keep, OurGroceries, AnyList, Bring! and Homsy all publish on both stores and sync between them. Apple Reminders and Apple Notes are the exception: Apple publishes neither of them on Google Play, so one Android in the household rules that route out completely.

Can two people edit the same shopping list at the same time?

Yes, in every app named here. Changes land on the other phones within a second or two: anylist.com says "any changes made to a shared list will show up instantly to everyone sharing the list", and OurGroceries' user guide says any change by either person "will be seen by the other instantly" — both read on 31 August 2026. Two people ticking items off in the same shop is the normal case, not an edge case.

Is a shared shopping list the same as a shared grocery list?

Yes. "Shopping list" is the British phrasing and "grocery list" the American one, and the apps are identical — several of them literally change their own name between the two App Store storefronts. Both mean one list that several people can add to, which updates in real time for whoever is at the shops.

Do I have to pay to share a shopping list?

No. OurGroceries states in its user guide that sharing is included on the free tier with no cap on how many people, and Google Keep has no paid tier at all. AnyList is free to create and share lists. What money buys in this category is the removal of advertising, recipe importing and desktop versions — not the sharing itself.

How many people can be on one shared shopping list?

It depends on the app, and the caps are not where you would guess. OurGroceries publishes no limit. Cozi's lists are shared with everyone on the account, up to twelve people. Homsy's free plan holds 2 members. Flipp shares a list between two accounts only, so it cannot serve a household of three adults. Check the cap before the third person tries to join, not after.

What is the fastest way to make a shared shopping list right now?

A checklist note in Google Keep, shared to the other person's Google address. No new app on either phone, no account to create, no cost, and it works between iPhone and Android. Move to a dedicated list app later if you find yourself wanting aisle grouping or a second list for a different shop.