Households

A household lets the people you live with share one collection. The owner keeps the games; everyone else in the household sees that shelf as their own and can add to it. It replaced the old Shared collection setting, which asked the newcomer to pick whose collection they saw — the person least likely to know the setting existed.

Setting one up

Go to your Crew page, open the person you live with, and turn on In my household. You are granting access to your shelf, so it is your decision and needs nothing from them. They are notified when you add them, and again if you remove them.

What a member can do

A member sees the household's collection as their own and can add games to it, including from the play-logging screen. They cannot remove games — only the owner can — and they cannot link or sync their own BoardGameGeek account. A member adding a game is adding it to the owner's shelf: one household, one collection, no copies to reconcile. BGG syncing stays with the owner because a BGG account belongs to one person; if a member synced, their games would land on a shelf nobody is looking at.

Joining requires an empty collection

Someone can only join a household if their own collection is empty. If they already have games, the switch refuses and tells you how many. This is what keeps households simple: no merging, no de-duplicating, and no question about whose copy of a game is whose. You either keep your own collection or you use your household's — never both. If they want to join, they can remove their games first, then be added, then re-add anything worth having on the shared shelf.

Leaving

A member can leave at any time from Settings → Use my own collection; their collection goes back to being their own and starts empty. The owner can also remove someone by turning In my household off on the crew page. Leaving is always available to the member on purpose — being added does not require their agreement, so undoing it must never require the owner's.

Things it deliberately does not do

Households have no names, you can only be in one, and we do not record who added which game.

Other help articles: Hosting an event · Joining as a guest · Why sign up? · Voting & results · Availability & dates · BoardGameGeek sync · Passwords & security · Your collection · Play log · FAQ · Mobile apps