How to Share Your Cookbook with Your Whole Family in 2 Minutes
Family Sharing setup in Forktastic — two minutes, six members, one Pro subscription. The full walkthrough.
This is the two-minute setup that turns Forktastic from a personal recipe app into a household one. Once it's done, every member of the family has access to the same recipes, the same meal plan, and the same grocery list — and the cost is one Pro subscription, not five.
The setup, step by step
- One person becomes the family owner. This is usually whoever has the Pro subscription. Open Forktastic → Settings → Family Sharing → Create Family.
- Forktastic generates a family invite code. Six digits.
- Each family member installs Forktastic on their device and creates their own account. Critical: each person uses their own email, not a shared one. Identity matters for activity logs, family-shared list ownership, and meal-plan personalization.
- Each new member enters the invite code on their first-launch setup screen (or under Settings → Family Sharing → Join Family).
- Done. All members are now in the family group. Pro features unlock automatically on each member's device.
Most families finish this in two minutes if everyone is in the same room. Remote setup (one person at a different house) is the same flow — share the code over text.
What gets shared
- Recipes in shared cookbooks (you can also keep personal-only cookbooks).
- Weekly meal plan when in Family mode.
- Grocery list — fully real-time shared.
- Cookbook activity feed — who added what, who cooked what.
What stays personal
- Health log data — your Apple Health / Health Connect entries are yours.
- Personal mode meal plans — your own meal plans (toggle to Personal in the planner).
- Notes on recipes — your private notes don't propagate to family members.
If you mess up the setup
The most common mistake is having multiple people sign in to a shared account instead of inviting each as their own member. The fix is to remove the shared account, have each person create their own, and re-invite. The recipes you added under the shared account are reassigned correctly when you transfer ownership.
Removing a family member
Owner can remove a family member at any time. The departing member's recipes stay in the family library (assigned to a holding cookbook) so nothing is lost. The departing member loses access to the group; they keep their own account but go back to a personal library.
Where to go next
For the broader family workflow, family pillar guide. For the Pro pricing model explanation, one subscription whole family. For migrating a Paprika library into the shared family library, Paprika migration.