--- title: Publishing Lists and Recipes description: How to publish a shopping list or recipe to a public link, what is shared (the items only, never your prices or stores), the optional rough total, managing and unpublishing, and importing a shared list or recipe into your own budget. subtitle: Share a list or recipe by link; it prices itself for whoever opens it. sidebar: order: 81 section: Sharing and community canonical_html_url: https://eb.app/learn/publishing-lists-and-recipes/ --- # Publishing Lists and Recipes Publishing turns one of your shopping lists or recipes into a public link anyone can open. The link shows the items (for a recipe, the ingredients and steps), and whoever opens it can add a copy to one of their own budgets, where it prices itself from their receipts. Your own prices and the stores you shop never travel with it. This page covers publishing a list or recipe, what a viewer sees, the optional rough total you can disclose, managing and unpublishing what you have shared, and what happens when someone opens your link and imports it. Publishing a list or recipe is free. It is a different feature from [Publishing a Budget](https://eb.app/learn/public-budgets.md), which shares a whole budget as a read-only teaching example and requires Premium. Specialized terms (*item*, *category*, *budget*) are defined in [Concepts](https://eb.app/learn/concepts.md); the lists and recipes themselves are covered on [Shopping Lists](https://eb.app/learn/shopping-lists.md) and [Recipes](https://eb.app/learn/recipes.md). > **Why publishing keeps your prices out of it.** The estimate you see on a list or recipe is built from your own receipts, which is personal. So a published copy carries the items only, never the prices or the stores. The person who opens it gets their own estimate from their own receipts, which is more useful to them anyway. --- ## Publishing a list or recipe Open the list or recipe you want to share. In the header, tap the share icon (its label is **Publish list** on a list and **Publish recipe** on a recipe). The publish dialog opens. The dialog is titled **Publish list** or **Publish recipe** and explains what gets shared: "We copy the items only, never your prices or your stores." Below that is one optional control, a **Show a rough total on the public copy** toggle, covered in the next section. Tap **Save** to publish. After you publish, the dialog stays open and shows the result: "Your recipe is live. Anyone with the link can view it and add it to their own budget, priced for their kitchen." It displays the **Public link** (a URL ending in `/published/` followed by a short code) and a **Share link** button. Tap **Share link** to hand the link off through your device's share sheet; if sharing is not available, the app copies the link to your clipboard and a toast reads `Link copied`. You can publish the same list or recipe again later. Re-publishing refreshes the public copy with the latest items, and the link stays the same, so any link you have already sent keeps working and points at the updated content. When a list or recipe is already published, the dialog title reads **Update published list** or **Update published recipe** and notes "The link stays the same." > **Why this default? One link that keeps up.** Re-publishing overwrites the existing public copy in place instead of minting a second one. So you can fix a typo or add an item after you have shared the link, and the people you sent it to see the update without a new link. Unpublishing is the only way to stop a link working. --- ## Showing a rough total By default a published list or recipe carries no prices at all. If you want viewers to see a ballpark cost, turn on **Show a rough total on the public copy** in the publish dialog. A **Rough total** field appears; type a dollar amount, and a note confirms "Viewers will see about $X." Leave the toggle off, or leave the amount blank, and nothing about cost is disclosed. This rough total is the single number a viewer can ever see. It is a figure you type by hand, not your computed estimate, so it never reveals what you actually paid or where. > **Why this default? Off by default, and a number you choose.** The estimate the app shows you comes from your receipts, so it is never put on a public copy automatically. The rough total is a separate, optional figure you decide to share, useful for a deal list where the headline price is the point. If you skip it, the published copy shows items with no cost at all. --- ## Managing what you have published Everything you have published lives on the **Published** screen, reached from the budget **More** screen. It lists your published lists and recipes across all your budgets, newest first, each with a **Recipe** or **List** label. Each row has three controls: - **Open** opens the public page the way a viewer sees it. - **Share** offers the link again through the share sheet (or copies it, with the same `Link copied` toast). - **Unpublish** is a swipe action on the right of the row. Swipe the row and tap **Unpublish** to take it down. The row disappears immediately, the link stops working, and a toast reads `Unpublished`. Unpublishing is immediate and final for that link. If you publish the same list or recipe again afterward, it gets a fresh link; the old one does not come back. Until then, you are the only one who can reach the content. If you have not published anything yet, the screen reads `Nothing published yet` with a one-line explanation of what publishing does. > **Why this default? Unpublish is the off switch.** A published list or recipe stays reachable by its link until you unpublish it, even if you later edit or delete the original in your budget (the public copy is a frozen snapshot). Unpublishing is how you stop sharing. There is no "anyone who saved it" list to manage, because importers get their own independent copy, not a live view of yours. --- ## Opening a shared link When someone opens a published link, they land on a public page that works without signing in. The page shows a **Shared list** or **Shared recipe** badge, the title, and the items. A list shows its items under an **Items** heading; a recipe shows its ingredients under an **Ingredients** heading, plus its servings ("Serves 4"), prep and cook times ("Prep 15 min", "Cook 30 min"), and an **Instructions** section, whenever the publisher set them. If the publisher disclosed a rough total, it shows as "About $X" near the top. No other cost appears, and nothing identifies whose budget the content came from. An **Add to my budget** button is the way to keep the content. What happens next depends on whether the viewer is signed in: - **Signed out.** Tapping **Add to my budget** sends them to sign in first, then returns them to the page. They can view the content beforehand; adding it needs an account. - **Signed in.** Tapping **Add to my budget** opens a dialog to pick which budget to add it to. Only budgets they can edit are offered. If a link has been unpublished or was never valid, the page reads `Not available` with the note "This link is no longer available or was never published." --- ## Importing into your budget When a signed-in viewer taps **Add to my budget**, the import dialog opens. It is titled **Add list** or **Add recipe** and explains: "We copy the items only; the prices fill in from your own receipts." It lists the budgets the viewer can edit; they pick one and tap **Save**. Importing creates a fresh, editable copy in the chosen budget, and the app opens it. From there it is a normal list or recipe: it can be edited, checked off, turned into a shopping list, or published again, like any other. The imported copy starts with no prices and fills in its own estimate as the importer scans their receipts. Only a budget the viewer can edit is a valid target. A budget they only view is not offered, and adding the content always requires that edit access. If they have no budget they can edit, the dialog says "You need a budget you can edit to add this list. Create one, then try again." and the Save button is hidden. > **Why this default? An import is a copy, not a subscription.** Adding a shared list or recipe gives you your own independent version to change however you like. It does not stay linked to the publisher's copy, and it does not update when they edit theirs. The publisher's prices were never in the snapshot, so your copy prices itself from your receipts, which is the estimate that is actually useful to you. --- ## How this differs from publishing a budget The app has two separate "publish to a link" features, and it is easy to mix them up: - **Publishing a list or recipe** (this page) shares one shopping list or recipe. It is free, the public copy carries items only and no prices or stores, and anyone who imports it gets an editable copy in their own budget. - **Publishing a budget** ([Publishing a Budget](https://eb.app/learn/public-budgets.md)) shares a whole budget as a read-only teaching example. It requires Premium, it masks account names and strips bank data, a budget that ever held bank data cannot be published, and viewers who add it get a read-only view they cannot edit. If you want to share what to buy or how to cook something, publish the list or recipe. If you are a coach or teacher walking people through an example budget, publish the budget. --- ## Quick reference | If you want to... | Do this | |---|---| | Share a shopping list | Open the list, tap the share icon (**Publish list**), tap **Save**, then **Share link** | | Share a recipe | Open the recipe, tap the share icon (**Publish recipe**), tap **Save**, then **Share link** | | Show a ballpark price on the public copy | In the publish dialog, turn on **Show a rough total on the public copy** and type an amount | | See everything you have published | Open the budget **More** screen, tap **Published** | | Send a link again | On the **Published** screen, tap a row's **Share** button | | Update a published list or recipe | Open it and publish again; the link stays the same | | Stop sharing | On the **Published** screen, swipe the row and tap **Unpublish** | | Keep a list or recipe someone shared | Open their link, tap **Add to my budget**, pick a budget you can edit | --- ## Behind the scenes A few details the screen does not spell out: - **A published copy is a snapshot, frozen at publish time.** Editing or deleting the original list or recipe in your budget does not change the public copy or break the link. Re-publish to push your latest items to it; unpublish to take it down. - **The only number a viewer can see is the rough total you choose to type.** Per-item prices, your basket estimate, and the stores you shop are never part of a published copy, by design. - **The link is keyed to the published item, not your username.** Renaming your username later does not invalidate a link you have already sent. - **AI is not involved.** Publishing, importing, and viewing a shared list or recipe use no credits and no AI. The only paid part of recipes is scanning a photo or PDF, covered on [Recipes](https://eb.app/learn/recipes.md). --- ## Related pages - [Shopping Lists](https://eb.app/learn/shopping-lists.md): building and checking off the lists you publish, and importing a shared list as a new list. - [Recipes](https://eb.app/learn/recipes.md): creating recipes, cost to make, and turning an imported recipe into a shopping list. - [Publishing a Budget](https://eb.app/learn/public-budgets.md): the separate, Premium feature for sharing a whole budget as a read-only example. - [Sharing a Budget](https://eb.app/learn/sharing.md): the other way to work on a list or recipe with someone, by sharing the budget it lives in so you both edit it live. - [Subscription](https://eb.app/learn/subscription.md): what is free and what Premium covers. --- ## About this document This is a markdown mirror of [https://eb.app/learn/publishing-lists-and-recipes/](https://eb.app/learn/publishing-lists-and-recipes/). The HTML version is the canonical form. This file exists so AI/LLM tools can ingest the content without HTML parsing.