FAQ and troubleshooting
Getting in
Do I need an account? A Google account, yes — tap Sign in at the top of this site and sign in with it, and you are in. There is no separate Planet4.Me account, no password and no email to verify. See Getting started.
Can I use it without Google? No. Google is the only way to sign in, on purpose: it removes password resets, verification emails and account recovery from the app entirely, and everyone in a household already has one.
Do I have to install anything? No. It runs in the browser at planet4.me — which, signed out, is this guide, and signed in, is the app. Installing it from the browser's Share or Install menu gives you an icon and a full-screen window, and is worth doing on a phone. See Put it on your phone.
An invite link didn't work. Links are good for a week, and the person who made it may have replaced or withdrawn it; removing someone from the workspace retires it too. Ask them for a fresh one from Settings → Members. After opening the link you still have to sign in with Google; joining happens on the far side of that.
Lists and regulars
Milk didn't come back on the list. The app only puts a regular back when it is confident about its rhythm, and it needs a few purchases to be. Look under the list: the Might be missing shelf holds what it is less sure about, with the reason beside each. Then check the regular's page in Settings → Regulars — a season that says it is out of season, or a pin to a shop you have not been to lately, both keep it off. See Regulars.
Something comes back too early, or too often. Tell the app how much is usually bought, on the regular's page, so a big pack and a small one read as the same rhythm. And undo mis-taps quickly: every check-off is a purchase the app learns from.
I checked something off by mistake. For a few seconds there is an undo. After that, the item is still on screen below the list, struck through, with this trip's other check-offs — tap it to put it back. Either way the purchase is reversed, so the mistake does not teach the app anything.
The trip is at the wrong shop. Settings → Recent trips, open the trip, Change shop. The whole trip moves — a trip recorded from a receipt included.
What does "Not found at Kroger on the last 2 trips there" mean? That regular has been on the list across the last two or more trips to that shop and came home unbought each time. It is a fact about the trips, not a nag — maybe the shop stopped stocking it, maybe it belongs to another shop.
Where did the Tidy up card go? It only appears on the Lists home while there is something to tidy. Once every proposal has been accepted or declined, it leaves.
Notes and to-dos
My todo line didn't become a to-do. The marker has to be at the very start of its line, and the to-do is made when you leave the note — go back, switch tab, or tap outside the text. The words themselves are saved a moment after you stop typing, but the lines that do something wait for you to leave, so a half-typed line never becomes a to-do. Once it is made, the line is marked "(now a to-do)". The same goes for ask, @name, #tag and a bracketed date. See Lines that do something.
A date in my note isn't on the calendar. In a note, only a date in square brackets — [Sep 4, 2026] — files the note on that day. A plain date is listed with the note's days, under the line below the note, and nothing more, so a note that merely mentions a date is not dragged onto the calendar. In a to-do, any date in its title counts; in its details, only a date in brackets does. Open In this note and tap Put on calendar beside a day to bracket it for you.
Where is the delete button? There mostly isn't one, on purpose. A note's X archives it to a shelf inside its folder, where it can be restored or, only from there, deleted for good. A to-do is completed, not deleted, and waits on the folder's Done shelf with a Put back; the tray on its row archives it instead — put away without being done — onto an Archived shelf beside it, the only place a to-do is deleted. A question is archived from the tray on its row, and deleted only from the Archived shelf at the bottom of Questions. The few things that do delete for good — Delete on an Archived shelf, a photo's or a PDF's Remove, Stop tracking a regular, Delete a shop — ask first, since none of them can be undone.
Two of us edited the same note and now a sentence is there twice. That is by design. When two people change the same words at the same time, both versions stand for someone to tidy, because nobody can un-delete a sentence a merge threw away. Delete the version you do not want. See Writing.
Can I assign a to-do to someone? Write their name in it as doing it: "call the vet @sam" is Sam's. "for @sam" makes it about Sam and leaves it yours, and "waiting on @sam" means Sam owes it to you. Once Sam has said This is me on their People page, the Mine filter shows Sam what is Sam's. There is no separate assignment to keep in step. See Whose a to-do is.
People
The same person appears twice. Open one entry and merge it with the other. The merge card asks which name to keep, and nothing in any note is rewritten — both spellings keep finding the person. See A person's page.
I can't remove a person. A person can be removed once nothing in the household names them any more. Until then, removing them would leave notes pointing at nobody.
"Mine" shows nothing. On All to-dos, Mine already holds the to-dos you wrote that name nobody else as doing them. For the ones that name you — and for Mine on the calendar and Questions — say which entry in People is you: open your own entry and tap This is me. See This is me.
A person's page looks emptier than it should. The page reads inside the look-back window, ninety days unless changed. Older notes and to-dos still exist; raise Look back in Settings to count them. See Look back.
Sync and offline
What do "offline" and "can't sync" mean? offline · 3 waiting means the phone has no connection and three changes are saved on it, to sync when it does. can't sync means the phone is online but the app's data cannot be reached — nearly always a content blocker or a filtering network, not the app. Your data is on screen and correct either way.
Something I wrote isn't on my partner's phone. Check the chip in the corner on the phone that wrote it. If it says changes are waiting, they go the moment there is signal. If it says can't sync, a blocker or network filter is in the way on that phone.
A chip says "a to-do wasn't saved". The change was refused, and the Service list in Settings has the record. Tap the chip away and try again.
The assistant
I don't see an assistant at all. The assisted features — the assistant, pantry photos, reading text off a photo, the tidied names on a scanned receipt — are switched on per deployment. Without them the app runs on its own arithmetic and what you type; the receipt scanner still works, since it reads the receipt on your phone. Ask whoever runs your deployment.
The assistant won't delete or check anything off. By design. It can add to a list, make a to-do, start a note, add a fact to a to-do, and rewrite the note you are reading. Anything that changes your data for good is your own tap; it points at the row.
"The assisted features are paused." This account's allowance is used up for today or this month. Settings → Assistant usage shows both meters and when each comes back: midnight UTC daily, the 1st monthly. Everything else keeps working meanwhile.
What does the assistant see? The household's lists, open to-dos, note titles and questions inside the look-back window; the full text of the note you are reading; other notes when you ask it to read them, up to eight per turn; the photos you attach; and, once you have said This is me, who you are. See What it knows.
Account and data
Why didn't I get a notification? Four things to check, in order. The switch: Settings → Notifications, on this phone — each phone has its own. The phone: on an iPhone the app must be on the Home Screen (Share → Add to Home Screen) and opened from there, and the browser must not have blocked the site. The deployment: the Notifications page says in one line when the app was built without a push key or the functions are not deployed. Then Send me a test tells you whether a push reaches this phone at all. See Notifications and reminders.
How do I leave a household? Settings → Members → leave. Whoever started the workspace cannot leave it, but can remove others.
What does the app know about my household? Settings → What the app knows lists every fact it has been told or has inferred, and each can be forgotten from there.
Where is the privacy policy? At planet4.me/privacy, readable without signing in.
What does this icon button do? Rest the mouse pointer on it: every button that is only an icon says what it does — "Archive", "Clear search" — and a screen reader hears the same, with what it acts on. On a phone there is no hover, so the icons stay the few the app uses everywhere — a camera, a file, an archive tray, a ✕.
Where is this guide, from inside the app? More → Help. It opens beside the app, and Open the app at the top of any page here brings you back.