The quickest way in is Continue with Google — it creates your household on the spot, with no code to enter. You can also sign up by email, but that path needs a signup code (it stands in for verifying your address).

Get Hillside from the App Store — search “Hillside” or tap that link, and it installs like any other iPhone app.

Prefer not to use the App Store? Hillside also runs as a web app you can add to your Home Screen — a full-screen icon, no browser bars, with pull-to-refresh:

1. In Safari, open app.hellohillside.com.
2. Tap the Share button.
3. Tap Add to Home Screen.

On Android, use Add to Home screen from Chrome's ⋮ menu.

On iPhone you can keep what's due right on your home screen, no app to open:

1. Touch and hold an empty part of your Home Screen until the icons jiggle, then tap Edit → Add Widget (the +).
2. Search Hillside, pick the To-dos widget, choose a size (small, medium, or large), and tap Add Widget.
3. To fine-tune it, touch and hold the widget and tap Edit Widget — switch the focus between the next 7 days, everything by urgency, or overdue only, and toggle due dates and the overdue count.

The widget is a glance — tap any line to open it in the app and check it off.

Tap the compose button (the pencil) and type, say, or paste it in — “out of milk,” “taco night Thursday” — and Hillside files each one where it belongs. Back from the store? Snap the receipt right there and the whole shop is logged at once. Recorded a voice memo? Paste or attach it and Hillside transcribes it on your phone, then files it the same way.

On iPhone you can add to Hillside hands-free — without opening it, or even unlocking your phone. Say “Hey Siri, capture in Hillside” or “Hey Siri, brain dump to Hillside,” then say whatever's on your mind — “out of milk,” “soccer Saturday at 9.” Siri hands it straight to Hillside, which pulls it apart and files each piece where it belongs, just like a capture you tap in yourself.

Forward an email, BCC a receipt, or send a quick note to the Hillside capture address. It's captured the same way: pulled apart and filed where each piece belongs. Hillside knows the household from who sent it, so send from the email address on your Hillside account — for your privacy, mail from any other address is ignored.

Got a note you keep coming back to — a kids' reading list, gift ideas, restaurants to try? You don't have to open it. Just capture the thing and Hillside finds the matching list and drops it on the end, tidied into a clean line.

1. Make a note and give it a clear title — “Kids' reading list,” “Gift ideas,” “Restaurants to try.”
2. Later, just capture it — “add The Wind in the Willows to the kids' reading list.”
3. Hillside spots your reading list and adds it to the end, cleaned up — no opening the note, no scrolling to the bottom.

Don't add things one at a time — brain-dump everything you've already got. Tap the compose button and say or type it all in one go: “rice, pasta, olive oil, a dozen eggs, milk, the good coffee, two onions…” Hillside splits the rundown into separate items and stocks your list, so you're set up in one sitting instead of ticking off a hundred boxes.

Snap a photo of the receipt and the whole shop is marked as in stock at once — your list reflects what's actually home, no ticking off item by item. No scanner, no copy-paste: Hillside reads the photo on the spot.

1. Tap the compose button to start a capture.
2. Tap Take Photo to snap the receipt, or Choose Photo to pick one from your library — you can also paste or drag a photo in.
3. Hillside reads it into the box and the button turns into Capture receipt ↑.
4. Glance over the items it pulled out, untick anything you're not keeping, and tap Capture receipt ↑.

Don't worry if the scanned text looks messy in the box — that's just the raw read, and Hillside tidies it into a clean, checkable list before anything is logged. The photo is kept with the entry, so you can open it later and see where each item came from. Prefer text? Pasting the lines straight in still works too.

Open your household settings and switch on the evening reminder. Once it's on, Hillside emails you at the end of each day with what's due tomorrow — and anything still open from earlier. It's off until you turn it on, and every reminder has a one-tap unsubscribe.

Hillside uses a standard remote MCP connection, so compatible chat apps can read and update your household with your approval. Here's how to connect Claude:

1. In Hillside, open your household settings.
2. Under Claude connector, copy the connector URL.
3. In Claude, go to Settings → Connectors → Add custom connector, then paste the URL.
4. Click Connect, sign in to Hillside, and approve access.

Now just ask — “what's on the list?”, “we're out of butter.”

The same URL also works in clients that support remote MCP over Streamable HTTP and OAuth. Follow that app's setup steps; available actions and voice support can depend on its plan and settings.

Your family shares one household — the shopping list, notes, to-dos and history live in it, and everyone sees the same thing on their own device. To add someone:

1. Open Settings → Members.
2. Tap Generate invite.
3. Send them the link (good for 7 days).

They open the link, set a password, and they're in — same household, their own login. Invites are for joining a household that already exists; to start a fresh one, use Continue with Google on the sign-up page.

Sometimes one note needs to reach a person who isn't in your household — a babysitter, a contractor, a grandparent. You can hand out a read-only link to that single note, and nothing else in the house:

1. Open the note and tap Share link.
2. Send the link however you like — it opens in any browser, needs no Hillside account, and shows just that one note.

The link is view-only. Done sharing? Open the note's ⋯ menu and tap Stop sharing — or Regenerate for a fresh link — and the old link stops working right away.

Everything in a household is shared by default — that's the whole point. But for a gift, a surprise, or a personal appointment, open the note and turn on Keep this to myself. It gets a lock and drops off everyone else's lists; only you can see it. Turn it back off whenever and it rejoins the household. (Ask Claude to jot down a gift idea and it sets this for you.)