Child Accounts

Want to manage an account for a child, parent, or pet right inside your account?

A Giftster child account shows up in your group as an individual member, with their own lists and gift preferences, but under your account's email address, and only managed by you.

When to use a child account

They may be called “child” accounts but that's just because you are the “parent” of it. Use a child account for a pet, a cause, a wedding, another adult family member, or a child.

• Your kids
• For a tech-phobic family member, you still want to see in your Giftster group
• A pet
• A cause

How to add a child account

1. Below My Lists, locate the "Child Accounts” section.
2. Click the new account button to add a child account. 
3. Enter the first and last name for this account, which will be the name shown in group lists and in Member Search.
4. Enter their birthday. Like regular accounts, Giftster will automatically remind you one month ahead of this birthday to update any birthday lists, and remind associated group members a week later. If you don't want this feature, leave the birthday blank.
5. Select the create account button. Nice job! Next, create a list.

Note: You can create as many child accounts as you wish, each has its own gift preference profile, I Got This list (to archive received items if you like) and as many lists as you need.

Add one or more lists

These lists stay associated with the Child Account and are visible in the Child Accounts area under My Lists. You can edit, add and delete lists anytime. You can set list privacy settings for each list and preference page the same as your regular account.

Update their Gift Preference Profile

Here's where you share sizes, favorite colors, and other general gift guidelines to help others make thoughtful gift selections for this person. Fill in a little or a lot, but share something!

Join a group

A Giftster group is required to get all the features of your Child Account. A group gives your family or close friends the best Giftster experience. All the parent and child account members associated with your group(s) will display on the browse and reserve gifts page.

A group is simply a list of Giftster accounts that have been approved by the group creator. This creates your private "club" of family where each member has access to view and reserve gifts and preferences on each other's lists just by signing into their own Giftster account.

You can start this group yourself for your family. Or perhaps you are already in a group having been invited by someone else.

Tip: Child accounts lists have a unique feature - you can view them as others do and mark items reserved or purchased, and see the names of others who have shopped your child account lists...something you can't do with your regular account lists. To enable this feature you must have created or joined a group. At a minimum, on the Groups page, select + add a new group, type in a name such as "My First Group", and press create group & invite. You can invite others later, by default your group now contains you and your child account(s) and you can see them on the browse and reserve gifts page.

Making the most of a child account

A child account works much like a regular account, except that it “lives” inside the parent account. Only the parent account can access the My List view to create lists, add items, etc. But to the rest of the family, it looks like another Giftster account, except your child accounts are associated under your name so others will know they are child accounts managed by you.

A child account differs from your regular account in these ways:

• There is no separate login to a Child Account, it is accessed from your account’s my list view.
• You can see your child accounts lists in the reserve and purchase gifts view, and you can mark items reserved and purchased.
• Child Accounts display the Child Account name in the group list. In addition, they are associated with the parent account visually so others know that they are child accounts and that you are the parent account.
• By design, and to preserve gift receiving surprise, you are not shown the purchase status of items on your regular parent account. But child accounts do display the purchase status to you since they are visible in the browse and reserve gifts view.
• Reminder emails sent from a Child Account list are delivered to the email address and news feed of the parent account, and include the name of the list or gift preference profile it references so you will know which child account it came from.
• Member search will find a child account by full name only. Member search will not find a child account by using the parent account name or email, but will find an individual child account if you search by the child account name with at least two characters for the first name and two characters for the last name. No child account lists are publicly available unless you choose to set privacy to public.
• By default, your child accounts are members of the same groups as your regular account. You cannot change that.
• By default, child accounts are participants in your Secret Santa name draw just like a parent account. You can choose to exclude them when you create your draw if you wish.

How others can add items to your child account list

Do you wish your spouse or partner could add items to your child account list? That is one way to use the Suggested Items feature. Anyone in your group will see a purple area at the bottom of your list on their Shop For view of that list, where they can add items to your list. These items may be shopped just like any other items, including marking them reserved or purchased. In this way, for example, two parents could both add items to the same child's list. These items are also visible to you on your own child account lists when you view them on your Shop For view of those lists.

Note: If you permanently close your parent account, Giftster assumes you also want to permanently close all associated child accounts.

If you read this far, you can now teach the class on child accounts!