Help

Forklist is a map of the places your friends recommend. Every spot starts private, and you choose who sees it.

Getting started

1. Sign in with Google or Apple. You need an account to add spots, add friends or join groups.
2. Find a place. Type it into the search box at the top and pick it from the suggestions. On a phone, press the plus on the bar at the bottom: Explore opens with its search box ready. A pin appears with Google's details for it. If Google doesn't list it, double-click the map where it is, or tap it on a phone, and name it yourself.
3. Check it, then confirm. Make sure it is the right branch. You cannot rename or move it later.
4. Choose who sees it. New pins are Just you by default. You can change that any time.
5. Add people. Add friends by email or friend code under Social. Groups are made from friends you already have.
6. Use the list. Tap a row to jump to it on the map. Tap the arrow on a row for its notes, votes and settings.

Four things people miss

All four need a few spots on your map first. The last three ask for your location. The Privacy page explains what each one sends.

Explore somewhere nearby

1. Open Home and scroll to Explore by cuisine and Explore by city.
2. Tap a cuisine to see the places near you that serve it, yours and everyone's.
3. Tap a city to see every place people have saved there. A stranger's place shows without their name or note, and Fork it adds it to your map. All cities shows every big city, by continent and country.
4. Allow location when your browser asks. Without it, the cuisine row isn't sorted by what's near you.

Pick somewhere for me

1. Open Home and find the Can't decide card.
2. Choose a mood if you like: Anything, Food, Cafés, Drinks, Dessert, Bakery or Bar. Press Fork me. It picks a random nearby spot and tells you how far away it is, and Take me there opens directions.
3. Press it again for a different one. Nothing goes on your map, and every place stays in the draw. The card keeps your pick until you reload or reopen Forklist. A Fork me widget on an Android phone keeps showing it.

Meet halfway

1. Open any place and press Meet halfway.
2. Press Or set the starting points yourself. The map comes up behind it.
3. Press Use my location for the first point and Pick on map for each of the others. Add another takes you up to four.
4. Press Find somewhere between. The map shows the spots with the shortest total travel for everyone. The circle shows the area it searched.

Get reminded when you are near a saved spot

1. Mark the places you want reminders for as Want to try. Places you have already been to will not trigger it.
2. Go to Settings → Notifications, find When you're near somewhere you saved, and switch it to On.
3. Allow location when your phone or browser asks. On the website and in the Android app, the check runs only while Forklist is open.
4. When you are within about 150 metres of one of those places, the app tells you, at most once a month per place. Your device does the check, and your location is never sent to us. Forklist keeps which place it was and when, for 30 days, so it does not tell you twice.
5. With Forklist Plus in the iPhone app, you can get the reminder with the app closed too. Below When you're near somewhere you saved, switch on With the app closed, and set Forklist's location to Always and Precise when your iPhone asks.

Questions

Adding a spot

Search for it in the box at the top, pick it from the suggestions, check it is the right place, and confirm. On a phone, press the plus on the bar at the bottom: Explore opens with its search box ready, and the two places nearest you are under it. A link from Google Maps or Google Search works in the box too, and pressing Enter on a name you typed searches Google for it.

Somewhere Google doesn't list, like a food truck or a friend's kitchen? Search its address, or double-click the map where it is (tap it on a phone). Google shows the places it knows there, and if none is right, you name it yourself.

Who can see it

Every pin starts as Just you. To change that, open the spot in the list and tap the grey PRIVATE label next to your name. You can switch it to Friends or to any group you are in, as often as you like. A note itself can never be made public. Forklist does not allow it. With Forklist Plus you can copy a note's words into a guide you publish, and then anyone with the guide's link can read that copy. If Google Maps lists the place, Explore shows it to everyone on Forklist. It shows your name and note only to people who can already read the note.

Lists

Forks is where your lists live. Your forks is every place you added or wrote a note about, and Want to try and Been fill up as you tap them on a place. Make your own list with New list, or from a place's page with Add to a list, say for a trip or a birthday. Open a list and press See on the map to show only those places on Explore.

A list is yours alone until you share it. Open it and press Share with friends to pick which friends see it. They see the places on it, and only the notes they could already read, and only you can change it. Unfriending someone ends every share between you.

On a place you have been to, Edit your note asks when you went. Been lists your visits month by month, and places with no date go last.

Open Forks and press Create crawl. Pick three to five stops, choose when you set off, and press Put these in order. Send shares it with friends, up to 12 people.

Ranking where you've been

When you mark a place Been, Forklist may ask which of two places you liked more. Your answers put the places you have been in order. Press Too close to call when you can't choose, or Rank it later to skip a question. To answer the rest later, open Forks, then Been, choose the Ranked sort, and press Rank them. Once you've ranked five, a ranked place shows a score out of 10 where its stars were. Until then you see where it ranks. Anyone who can read your note there sees the score, never its place in your order, and before you've ranked five they see neither the score nor your stars. Privacy has the rule.

Who you went with

When you save a place as Been, the Went with box takes up to 12 friends. Each one is asked whether they were there, unless they were asked about that place in the last 30 days. Yes, I was there adds the place to their Been list, stamps its city on their passport, and tells you. Not me adds nothing, and you are not told. An ask nobody answers ends after 30 days.

Groups

Start one under Social → Groups → Start a group. Pick the friends and give it a name, like a group chat. They are added straight away and can leave whenever they want. Anyone in the group can rename it or add their own friends, and everyone in a group can see everyone else in it by name.

A group made this way has no join link at all. The only way in is for someone already in it to add you. It has a six-character code, but the code on its own does not let anyone in. On a phone, tap the group's name at the top of its chat to see the code, who is in it and its map.

To let in someone you are not friends with, the owner can set a password under Manage. That turns on the join link. Send the link and the password separately, so a forwarded link on its own is useless. Changing the password cancels every link already sent without removing anyone. Turning the password off closes the group again.

Meet in the middle

Open Social and press Ask where everyone is. Pick people or a group. Everyone taps once, and locations are gone after two hours.

Tables

A table is a place, a day, a time and a few seats. Open one under Social → Tables, or from a place's page with Open a table here. Your friends and the people in your groups can ask for a seat, and you decide who sits down. The group a table makes does not count, so somebody you sat with once does not see your next table.

Everyone you seat joins a group for the table, so everyone at a table can see everyone else in it by name. Tables are for people 18 and over. In the phone app, Google Play or Apple may tell Forklist your age range. Otherwise you are asked, and your word is taken. Nobody's age or identity is checked, so meet at the restaurant, and report anyone who makes you uneasy.

A table can also be open to your city. You can see, ask at and open city tables once you've had Forklist two weeks, have five friends and have saved ten places. They seat three to eight, counting you, and you can have three asks waiting at city tables at once.

At a table, people who are not your friends see your initial instead of your picture. Pictures show once the table is full, or three hours before it meets, and only between people with a seat. On a table you host or have a seat at, Share where I'll be lets you send the place, address and time to someone you trust. Forklist never sees it.

I can't see Tables

Tables are for people 18 and over. If Apple or Google says this account is under 18, Tables are hidden on every device. In the phone app, Settings → Account → Check again asks them now.

If you see Tables but not the ones open to your city, the app says what is still missing: two weeks, five friends or ten saved places. If you have all three and city tables still don't show, they are paused for this account while two or more people signed in to Forklist have open reports about it, or for 90 days after the Forklist team took something of yours down. Your friends' and groups' tables still show. A note on Tables says which of these it is, and you can ask a person to look again from there. A person answers within two weeks.

Friends

Do they need an account? Yes. It is free.

How do you add one? By email address or friend code, in the Friends tab under Social. Your own code is on that tab, and you can swap it for a new one any time. Those are the only ways in: there is no link to pass around and nothing uploads your contacts.

What happens next? They get a request and decide. You become friends only when they press Accept, and neither of you can see the other's pins before then. If they have not signed up yet, the request waits for them. Signing up never makes you someone's friend automatically.

Undoing it. Either of you can remove the friendship. That removes each of you from the other's map.

Upvoting

The Upvote button on a note tells your friends you recommend the place. On a friend's card in the bell's Friends tab it reads Agree. They see your recommendation, not which note you upvoted. The note's author is told someone agreed with it, never who.

Sending a spot

Send to a friend sends a spot to one or more friends as a notification, with a short message you pick from a list.

Challenges

Open Social and press the trophy at the top. Most months there is one challenge for everyone: join it, then save the number of new spots it asks for. You can also start one with up to 12 friends. Pick what to try, how many new spots, and a week, three weeks or a month. You can have three open at a time. Finishing a challenge for everyone earns the Challenger badge. A challenge with friends is for fun and earns nothing. People in a challenge with you see how many places you've counted and the day you finished, never which places.

Your Year in Food

It is on your profile and on Home from December 1, and it stays through January. Share makes a picture of it.

Still stuck

Sign in and open Settings → Support. A person reads your message, with your name and email attached, and the answer arrives in Forklist, under Notifications. The support page explains what to include.

If you cannot sign in, use the form on the support page. A message sent without an account, and the address you give for a reply, are deleted after 90 days.