Sharing a shelf with your family

Most board game collections live in one house and get played by everyone in it. Deshelved has a household for exactly that: one shelf, shared, with no second copy of anything to keep in step. It takes four steps, in this order. Most problems come from skipping step 1.

1. They need their own Deshelved account

A household is a link between two registered accounts, so the person you live with has to sign up first. You may already have them on your Crew page as a name you typed in — that is a placeholder, a label on your own list rather than a person with an account, and it cannot join a household or appear as an option.

2. Connect your two accounts

They send you their crew link. They open Crew, tap Share, and send you what it gives them; you open it and you both land in each other's crew. Or you add them by email — but it must be the email they registered with. Any other address creates a placeholder instead, and you are back at step 1 without knowing it.

3. Their collection needs to be empty

A household has one shelf, so somebody joining brings no games with them. If they have already added their own, the switch refuses and tells you how many. There is no merging — which is what stops there ever being a question about whose copy of a game is whose.

4. Turn on the household

Go to Crew, open the person, and turn on In my household. They are told they have been added, and next time they open Deshelved they see your shelf as their own.

What a member can do

A member can see the household's collection as their own — on their Collection page, when picking games for an event, and when logging a play — and add games to it. A member cannot remove games (only the owner can), and cannot link or sync their own BoardGameGeek account, because a BGG account belongs to one person and their games would land on a shelf nobody is looking at.

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, or by removing them from the crew. 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.

When it does not work

Almost every problem here comes from step 1 or step 2. If they do not appear in the list, they have not registered or the entry on your Crew page is a placeholder. If adding by email did nothing, it was not the address they registered with. If it says their collection is not empty, they have games of their own to remove first.

What a household does not do

It does not merge two collections. Households have no names, nobody is in two households, and we do not record who added which game.

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