Intro: You have a family page. Now you need a list on it.
Your family page exists. It has a name, it has a cover image, and it has absolutely nothing on it. The shower is in three weeks.
This piece is the mechanics, in order. Name it, fill it, publish it, show it. It is not advice on what to put on the list — that is its own post, and it deserves one.
There is one idea worth holding onto before you start, because it makes everything else relaxing instead of nerve-wracking. Nothing you do is live until you say so.
A list you have not switched on is not on your family page. An item you have not published is not on your list. You can build the whole thing out in the open, over as many evenings as you like, and still be the only person who has ever seen it.
The five steps, in order
- Create the list and give it a name.
- Add items — by hand on your family page, or with the browser add-on while you shop.
- Keep what is not ready as a draft. Items and whole lists both have an unfinished state.
- Publish the items you are happy with.
- Flip the toggle so the list appears as a tab on your family page.
Steps three and five are the ones people miss, and they are the two this post spends the most time on.
Step 1: Create the list and name it
Where the button is
Open your family page and go into editing. At the end of the row of tabs, next to a gift icon, sits Create gift list.
Press it and a new tab appears, labeled "New Gift List" until you type something better.
Naming it
The field is GIFT LIST NAME.
Keep it short. The field stops at 25 characters, and that is on purpose — the name has to fit on a tab.
The name is the whole occasion. There is no separate occasion dropdown and no date field anywhere on this screen. "Baby Shower" or "Ellie's 5th" is the setting.
One thing to watch. Typing the name switches the list on for you. On a brand-new list, the toggle beside the name flips on the moment you start typing.
If you are not ready for that, turn it back off. Once you have turned it off by hand, it stays off no matter how much more you type.
The other two choices on this screen
VISIBLE TO NEW FOLLOWERS — Yes / No. Yes means people you approve as followers get access to this list automatically. Choosing Yes also grants access to the followers you already have, so a new list does not quietly skip them. No means nobody gets it by default, and you hand out access person by person on the Followers page.
DISPLAY DELIVERY ADDRESS — Yes / No. Yes opens up fields for the recipient's first and last name, two address lines, city, region, postal code and country.
This is a per-list choice. Show the address on the shower list, hide it on the birthday list. Hiding it breaks nothing — people still browse the list and still mark things as purchased. They just never learn where you live.
Save before you add anything
A yellow banner says it plainly: "To add items, save your gift list first." The items area below it will keep showing "No items have been added..." until the list actually exists.
So save. Belovity drops you straight onto the new list's own tab, ready for items.
Step 2: Add items
By hand, on your family page
At the top of the list's tab there is an Add a new item button. Press it and you get a form.
ITEM NAME is required. Keep it short so it displays in full.
PRICE takes dollars and cents, up to $50,000.
QUANTITY lets you pick a number from 1 to 99, or choose unlimited for the things you always want more of. Diapers. Wipes.
PURCHASE LINK is required before an item will publish, and it has to be an https:// address.
SIZE and COLOR are short free text, and both are optional.
NOTES FOR FAMILY & FRIENDS gives you 500 characters for preferences, alternatives, and "the blue one, not the gray one."
Most wanted is a toggle for flagging the things you care about most.
Beside the item name there is a wand button labeled "Shorten it". Store titles run long, and this rewrites a mouthful into something that fits on your list. It only does anything if the name is actually long. It is also a paid-plan feature — on the free plan, the button opens the upgrade prompt instead.
With the browser add-on, while you shop
The add-on is the fast path. You are already on the product page, you click, and the item lands on your list.
Belovity offers it to you right on the gift list screen — a card reading "Download our chrome extension & easily add items to your registry", with an Install the extension button.
You connect it from Browser Extension Connections in your menu. The button reads "Connect the extension" the first time and "Connect another browser" after that. Every connected browser is listed along with when it was connected, and each one has its own disconnect button. Connections also expire on their own after 30 days.
Once it is connected, here is what it does. It shows you your families and their gift lists, so you pick where the item goes. It grabs the product name, price and link off the page. It cleans up the mess stores put in titles, so the "Amazon.com :" prefix and the category trail at the end get stripped before the item is saved. It turns "$1,234.56" into a number your list can actually use. And it lets you add the item published or as a draft, exactly like adding by hand.
It can even create the list for you. If you are shopping and do not have a list yet, the add-on can start a new gift list straight from the store's page.
That list arrives switched off — a private draft. Nothing appears on your family page until you go and turn it on yourself.
Steps 3 and 4: Drafts, and then publishing
Two buttons at the bottom of every item
Add item to registry publishes it. Visitors can see it and buy it.
Save but don't publish keeps it as a draft. It is saved, it is yours, and it is invisible.
On an item that is already published, those same two buttons read Update registry item and Unlist registry item. Unlisting is not deleting. The item goes back to being a draft, and you can publish it again whenever you like.
How to tell what is what
Open a draft item and a yellow banner tells you: "This item is a draft and is not listed on your registry."
In your list of items, each row carries an icon. A green check badge means published. A gray badge means draft. A gift icon means somebody has bought it.
What publishing actually requires
Name, purchase link, price and quantity all have to be filled in before an item will publish.
That is deliberate. A published item is one somebody is meant to be able to buy right now, and a half-finished item cannot do that job.
Drafts have no such bar. Park a vague idea with nothing but a name and come back to it next week.
What visitors see
Only published items. Drafts never appear, whatever link somebody follows.
Items that have been fully bought drop off the visible list automatically — unless you set the quantity to unlimited, in which case they stay.
Step 5: The toggle, and what it actually does
One switch, next to the list's name
The toggle beside GIFT LIST NAME is the only thing standing between your list and your family page. Its own tooltip says as much: use the toggle to show or hide it from visitors.
On
The list becomes a tab on your family page, labeled with the name you gave it.
Anyone who opens your family page and has permission to see the list lands on it. With more than one list switched on, each gets its own tab and visitors move between them.
Off
The list is not gone. It is still there in your editing view, still holding every item, still fully editable.
It simply is not a tab, and it is not reachable by anyone else. Followers cannot open it. Neither can anyone holding a direct link. There is no back door into a switched-off list.
This is what makes "build it now, show it later" work. Assemble twenty items over two weeks with the toggle off, then flip it once.
The quiet third condition
A list that is switched on but has no published items still will not show for visitors.
So the sequence that actually works is: publish at least one item, then flip the toggle.
Your own view is different. As the owner or an admin, you always see every list — on or off, empty or full.
Step 6: When you hit the gift list limit
What the limit is
The free plan allows one gift list.
The count sits at the top of your editing tabs: 1/1 gift list. It turns red if you have gone over.
Every list counts, in every state. A switched-off draft counts exactly the same as a live one. A list the browser add-on created while you were shopping counts too.
What happens when you are at it
Press Create gift list and instead of a new tab you get an upgrade prompt. If you own the family page, it reads "Upgrade to unlock more gift lists!" If you are an admin rather than the owner, it tells you to contact the owner.
And if you somehow get a second list started and try to save it, you will be told plainly: "You can only have up to 1 gift list."
Your three options
Reuse the list you have. Rename it and swap out the items. Nothing forces one list per occasion.
Delete the old one. The Danger Zone on each list has a Delete registry button. It removes the list, all of its items and all of its purchase records, and it cannot be undone. But it frees the slot.
Upgrade. A paid plan lifts the cap entirely — unlimited gift lists, and no counter in the tab bar at all.
Worth knowing: new family pages start with a 21-day free trial that already includes unlimited lists. Your first few weeks are not the moment you will meet this.
Three real setups
The baby shower, built in secret
Create the list, name it "Baby Shower", and leave the toggle off.
Spend two weeks adding things with the browser add-on while you shop. Everything saves as drafts, and nothing is visible to anyone.
The day before invites go out: publish the items, switch the toggle on, share the page.
The list you started while shopping
You are on a store's product page with the add-on installed and no gift list yet.
The add-on creates the list and drops the item into it. The list arrives switched off — a private draft.
Later, on your family page, you name it properly, decide whether the delivery address shows, publish the items, and flip the toggle.
The birthday list on a free plan
One list is already live for the shower, so you are at 1/1.
Create gift list opens the upgrade prompt instead of giving you a tab.
You make a choice: rename the existing list to "Ellie's Birthday", delete the finished shower items, and add the new ones. One list, reused, no upgrade needed.
Checklist: before you share the link
Does the list have a name short enough to fit on a tab?
Is at least one item published, rather than sitting in drafts?
Is the toggle beside the name on?
Does every published item have a working purchase link?
Have you decided, for this list specifically, whether the delivery address shows?
Is VISIBLE TO NEW FOLLOWERS set the way you want it for the people you are about to invite? (Unlimited plan only)
Open your family page in a private browser window and check that the tab is actually there.
Five steps and one toggle
That is the whole thing. Name it, fill it, keep what is not ready as a draft, publish what is, and flip one switch.
Nothing goes live by accident along the way. Drafts stay drafts. Switched-off lists stay hidden. You decide the moment it all becomes visible.
So create your first gift list, add one item, and flip the toggle when it feels ready. Not before.
