How MomGist works
Short guides to the things people ask about most. Nothing here takes more than a few minutes.
Adding your kids
Everything MomGist does hangs off your children's ages and sizes, so this is worth two minutes at the start.
- Go to Setup and fill in a first name, boy or girl, and a birthday.
- Add clothing size, shoe size and favourite colours if you know them. They're optional — but they're what turns a generic suggestion into something that actually fits.
- Tap Save info. The form clears and you can add the next child.
Adding more than one child? Tap Save info after each one. If you forget and tap Continue instead, don't worry — we save whoever's in the form before moving on.
Adding a date yourself
Not everything arrives as a handout or an email. When a friend mentions a party at pickup, put it straight in.
- Tap + Add a date on the Today screen.
- Give it a name and a date. Everything else is optional.
- If it's a party or a shower, add the child's age and the theme — that's what lets MomGist suggest a present that actually suits them.
- Add an RSVP date if there is one, and MomGist will nudge you before it passes.
Connecting your Google Calendar
MomGist reads your calendar so it can spot birthdays, parties, school dates and trips, and remind you what to get while there's still time.
- Setup → Connect Google Calendar.
- Choose your Google account and allow access.
- Back in MomGist you'll see a list of your calendars. Tick the ones MomGist should watch. Only your main calendar is ticked to start with.
Tick your Family calendar. Shared calendars are where school dates and children's parties usually live — if you only leave your personal one ticked, MomGist will miss most of what matters.
Access is read-only. MomGist can't add, change or delete anything in your calendar. Ever. You can disconnect at any time from Setup, or remove access from your Google account.
Snapping a handout or invite
The fastest way to get something into MomGist is to photograph it.
- Tap Snap a handout on the Today screen.
- Take a photo, or pick one you've already taken. PDFs work too.
- MomGist pulls out the dates and shows you what it found. Nothing is saved until you say so — tap Save the date on anything you want to keep.
Something from a therapist, nurse or specialist? MomGist recognises it and deliberately doesn't read it. Instead you get a simple reminder to go and read the original yourself, and that reminder disappears after two days. Their words, not our summary of them.
Forwarding school email
Every account gets its own private MomGist address. Anything you forward there gets read for dates, and they turn up on your Today screen.
- Find your address in Setup — it looks like
[email protected].
- Forward a school email to it, or set your mail app to forward automatically.
- Dates show up in MomGist within a minute or two. Tap Save the date to keep one.
Setting up automatic forwarding in Gmail? Gmail sends a confirmation before it will forward anything. We catch that and email you a Confirm button — check the inbox you signed up with and tap it. That's the last step.
We never connect to your inbox and we can't see it. We only ever receive the individual messages you choose to send us.
Sending your dates to your other calendars
This is your life — you should be able to take it wherever you go. MomGist can give you a private link that your Google, Apple, Outlook or Skylight calendar subscribes to. Add it once and your MomGist dates keep showing up there on their own.
- Setup → scroll to Send MomGist to your other calendars → Get my calendar link.
- Choose what should travel — parties, school dates, appointments, trips, and so on. Untick anything you'd rather keep to yourself.
- Copy the link and add it to your calendar as a subscription:
- Google Calendar (on a computer): Other calendars → + → From URL → paste.
- iPhone: Settings → Calendar → Accounts → Add Account → Other → Add Subscribed Calendar → paste.
- Skylight and similar frames: look for "add calendar by URL" in their settings.
Opening the link just downloads a file — that's normal. A browser downloads calendar files; a calendar app subscribes to them. Use the steps above and it stays live.
Two honest notes. Calendars check for new dates on their own schedule — Google in particular can take several hours, so something you added a minute ago may not appear straight away. And this link works like a password: anyone who has it can see the dates you chose to include. If you ever share it too widely, tap Get a new link and the old one stops working everywhere, immediately.
Reminders about clinical email are switched off unless you turn them on. If you do, they show up only as "Something to read — check MomGist", with no name attached — so a calendar on the kitchen wall never announces who sent you something.
MomGist doesn't cost anything and has no ads. When you tap a shopping link and buy something, the retailer may pay us a small commission — at no extra cost to you. That's what keeps the lights on.
Suggestions are based on your children and your calendar, never on which shop pays us most. There's more in our affiliate disclosure.
Something not working?
Email [email protected] and tell us what happened. A screenshot helps enormously.
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