🪄 momgist

How MomGist works

Short guides to the things people ask about most. Nothing here takes more than a few minutes.

Jump to:

Adding your kids

Everything MomGist does hangs off your children's ages and sizes, so this is worth two minutes at the start.

  1. Go to Setup and fill in a first name, boy or girl, and a birthday.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

  1. Tap + Add a date on the Today screen.
  2. Give it a name and a date. Everything else is optional.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.

  1. Setup → Connect Google Calendar.
  2. Choose your Google account and allow access.
  3. 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.

  1. Tap Snap a handout on the Today screen.
  2. Take a photo, or pick one you've already taken. PDFs work too.
  3. 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.

The quick way — try this first

  1. Find your address in Setup — it looks like yourname-abc123@mom-gist.com.
  2. Forward any school email to it, the way you'd forward to a friend.
  3. Open MomGist and look at Today. The dates will be there within a minute or two.

That's it. Once you've seen it work, it's worth setting up automatic forwarding so you never have to think about it again.

Automatic forwarding in Gmail

Do this on a computer. The Gmail app can't create filters — only the full site can. If you only have a phone, open Gmail in your browser and ask for the desktop site (Safari: aA → Request Desktop Website · Chrome: ⋮ → Desktop site). It's fiddly on a small screen, but it works.
  1. Open Gmail → the ⚙️ icon, top right → See all settings.
  2. Go to the Forwarding and POP/IMAP tab → Add a forwarding address → paste your MomGist address → Next → Proceed.
  3. Gmail sends a confirmation — to MomGist, not to you. We forward it straight back to your inbox with a Confirm button. Watch for it and tap it once. Nothing works until you do.
  4. Back in Settings → Filters and Blocked Addresses → Create a new filter. In the From box type your school's address or domain — something like @westfield.org — then Create filter, tick Forward it to, choose your MomGist address, and Create filter again.
  5. Repeat step 4 for each school, club or activity you want us watching. One filter each.
🚨 Now the step everyone misses.

Go back to Forwarding and POP/IMAP and make sure "Disable forwarding" is selected.

Adding an address often switches on "Forward a copy of incoming mail" — and that sends us everything: your bank, your shopping, all of it. Gmail does this on its own; you didn't choose it.

Your filter still works with this turned off. The filter is the bit that sends us school mail. The blanket forward just sends us the rest.

How to check: the banner at the top of Gmail should say your filters are forwarding some of your mail. If it says you're forwarding your email and your filters are too, the blanket forward is still on.

Gmail asks again every so often. It quietly stops forwarding until you confirm — no warning, nothing in your inbox. We'll email you when it happens, so if anything from us says confirm forwarding, don't leave it.

Outlook — quite a bit easier

  1. Open Outlook.com → ⚙️ Settings → Mail → Rules.
  2. Add new rule → name it "School to MomGist".
  3. Condition: From → your school's address or domain.
  4. Action: Forward to → paste your MomGist address.
  5. Save. No confirmation step, no blanket-forward trap.

iCloud / Apple Mail

  1. iCloud.com → Mail → ⚙️ → Rules → Add a Rule.
  2. If a message is from → your school's address → Forward to → your MomGist address.

On your iPhone you can also just tap Share → Forward on any email — no setup at all.

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.

  1. Setup → scroll to Send MomGist to your other calendars → Get my calendar link.
  2. Choose what should travel — parties, school dates, appointments, trips, and so on. Untick anything you'd rather keep to yourself.
  3. 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.

How MomGist stays free

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 hello@mom-gist.com and tell us what happened. A screenshot helps enormously.

Open MomGist →