Support

Last updated 22 July 2026

Answers to the questions that actually come up in Commonkeep, and how to reach a human when the answer is not here.

Contact us

Email commonkeepapp@tallbottech.com.au. It helps if you include your device and OS version, what you did, and what you expected instead. Please do not send us your password to anything, and note that we cannot read your household's lists to debug them for you.

Signing in

How sign-in works

Commonkeep has no passwords. You type your email address, we send you a message containing both a sign-in link and a 6-digit code, and you use whichever is easier. The code is always offered, not just as a fallback, because a link cannot open the app when you are reading your mail on a different device.

The email has not arrived

• Give it a minute. It is usually seconds, but mail providers queue.
• Check spam, junk, and any Promotions or Updates tab.
• Check the address you typed. A typo sends a perfectly good email to somebody else.
• Tap Resend on the code screen, or Use a different email to start over with another address.

If nothing arrives after a few tries, email us from the address you are trying to use and we will look into it.

The link opened a browser instead of the app

That happens when the link is opened somewhere the app is not installed, such as a desktop machine. Ignore the link and type the 6-digit code from the same email into the app instead. It does the same thing.

Can I change the email address on my account?

Not from inside the app yet. Your email address is the only thing that identifies your account, so email us and we will tell you what is possible. If you simply want out, see Delete your account.

Households and invitations

Inviting someone

Open the You tab and choose Invite someone. You get an 8-character code, a link, and a QR code, plus a share button. The person you invite can scan the QR, tap the link, or type the code into the join screen when they first open the app. Tapping an invite link fills the code in for them.

How many people can join?

Up to 20 members per household. That is a household cap, not a device cap; your own phone and tablet are the same member.

The code says it is invalid or expired

Invitations expire 14 days after they are created, and a revoked invitation stops working immediately. Ask whoever invited you to open the invite sheet again and send a fresh code. It is also worth checking for a mistyped character before assuming the code is dead.

What can other members see?

Everything on the shared list: every item and the exact line it was typed or dictated from, your stores, your trips and the prices recorded on them, repeating items, and the household activity log, along with other members' display names. Email addresses are never shared with other members. See the Privacy Policy for the full picture.

Leaving or deleting a household

You can leave a household from its settings; the list stops syncing to your device and the household keeps running for everyone else. If you are the last member left, you can delete the household outright, which permanently removes its items, stores, trips, prices, repeating items, and activity log. Full steps, and how to delete the account itself, are on Delete your account.

Adding things to the list

How Commonkeep reads what you say

Capture reads a plain sentence with a small set of rules that run on your device. Nothing is sent to an AI service. It looks for three things:

• Quantity and unit at the front of each item: 2x milk, 2 milk, two bottles of milk, 500g mince, a dozen eggs.
• A store, usually at the end: from, at or to followed by the name of a store you have already created. The bare name works too, as in Milk Coles.
• Urgency: urgent, asap, right away mark it urgent, and no rush, whenever, sometime mark it whenever. Anything else is the normal "soon".

It also strips lead-ins like add, we need, bullets and checkboxes, then splits on commas and "and". So add eggs, milk and paper towels to Woolworths, urgent becomes three urgent items filed under Woolworths, not one long item.

The rules stop there on purpose. A parser that guesses produces items nobody asked for, and an unwanted item on a shared list costs more than an item whose name still reads exactly the way you said it. Whatever it gets wrong, you can edit on the item afterwards.

Why did my item land in the Inbox?

Because no store was recognised in the line. That is not an error, it is where an item waits until it has a shop. It happens when:

• you have not created that store yet, so the words are treated as part of the item's name;
• you spelled it in a way the matcher could not connect to any store you have; or
• you genuinely did not mention a store.

Fix it by opening the item and choosing a store, or by creating the store first and then saying its name the way you named it. Stores in Commonkeep are free text you create yourself; there are no built-in retailers and no partnerships with any shop.

"You already have this on the list"

Commonkeep checks new items against the ones already active on the list and tells you when one looks like a match, whether that is the same name, the same word counted differently ("tomatoes" against "tomato"), or close enough to be a typo. It never merges or drops anything for you. You choose whether to add it anyway or open the one that is already there. Something bought last month is not treated as a duplicate, because buying it again is the normal case.

Pasting a list from another app

Paste the whole note into the import sheet. The same rules run line by line, bullets and checkboxes included, and you get a review screen before anything lands on the list.

Voice capture is not working

Voice uses your phone's own speech recognition, so it needs the microphone and speech recognition permissions granted to Commonkeep, and on some devices a language pack installed by the operating system. If the button does nothing, check those permissions in your device settings. Typing does exactly the same thing as dictating; the same rules read both.

Shopping

Using trip mode with no signal

Trip mode is built for a shop with no reception. Every tick, price, and note is written to your phone first and uploaded whenever the connection comes back, possibly on the drive home. Nothing on that screen waits on the network. If you are offline you will see a banner saying so, which is a status, not a warning.

Someone else's changes are not showing up

One of you is probably offline. Changes sync when the device reconnects, so open the app with a connection for a moment and it will catch up. Everyone in the household edits the same list, so there is no "send" step.

Ticked items stay on the screen

Deliberately. Items you have put in the cart or marked as not found stay visible, each with an Undo, because a row that vanishes the instant you tap it reads as if something was lost.

Data

Can I export my lists?

Not yet. There is no export today, which is worth knowing before you delete a household, since deletion cannot be undone.

Where is my data stored?

On your device, and on our server so it can sync between household members. The Privacy Policy sets out exactly what is stored, who can see it, and the one third party involved.