How to use Nook

Getting started

1. Open Nook and tap Get started, then Continue with Apple. Signing in is what lets the assistant and family sharing know it's you; Nook never sees your password. If you've used Nook before, it says Welcome back and brings your household down from iCloud.
2. Make it yours: your name, your color, and what you'd like help with (your schedule, family and handoffs, routines, meals and groceries). Today shows the sections you pick.
3. Who else is in your Nook? Add your partner, children, a grandparent or a sitter. Each gets a color and a calendar, and a child's birthday goes on the calendar every year.
4. Tell Nook about a normal week, the way you'd explain it to a new sitter. Nook turns it into events, handoffs, routines and dinners for you to review. Untick anything you don't want, then tap Approve and add. Nothing is added until you do.

You can also Continue without an account and sign in later from Household › Account. Everything works by hand; the assistant and family sharing wait until you sign in.

Today and Nook noticed

Today is the whole day on one screen: what's on, who's handling each drop-off and pickup, priorities, routines and tonight's dinner. Reorder or hide its sections under Customize.

Nook noticed cards flag what will bite: a pickup nobody is on, someone double-booked, a child's activity with no grown-up, ingredients missing for tonight, dinners not planned, a task that keeps slipping. Each card has a fix:

• Assign to Jordan does it in one tap when only one grown-up is free.
• Ask Nook opens a conversation with the situation already written out.
• Not now hides the card until it's likely to matter again.

If the sitter or Grandma covers a handoff, tap Change on it and pick Someone else…. If nobody needs to do it, pick Not needed, for that day or every time.

Deleting one thing happens straight away, with Undo on the note at the bottom of the screen. Bigger things, like a whole list or a person, ask first.

The calendar

Switch between Day, Week, Month and Agenda at the top. Tap + to add an event; on iPad you can drag an event to move it.

Family month

Month shows the whole family at once: each day's events, trips and school breaks as one bar across the days they cover, tonight's dinner, and who's taking or picking someone up. Busy days get a warm tint. On iPad, switch between Overview (a dot for each person, so the month reads at a glance) and Details (event titles), or pinch. On iPhone, tap a day to see its list underneath.

Week, by time or by person

Week has two layouts. Times is the hour grid. People gives each person a lane across the seven days, with a lane for household events and dinner along the bottom, so you can see who's where this week, like a family wall calendar.

Repeating events and handoffs

• When you change a repeating event, choose just this one, this and later or all.
• Set who's dropping off and picking up in the event. For something that never needs a grown-up from the family, turn on Nobody needs to take or be there.
• Events can be Household, Busy only or Private (see Privacy).

To show your work or school calendars alongside Nook's, go to Household › Connected calendars. Nook shows them but doesn't change them.

Tasks, routines and checklists

• Tasks can be shared, personal or chores, with a priority and a due day or time. Chores can repeat. Link a task to an event, like "order the cake" a week before June's party. When the day gets away, Postpone moves a task to tomorrow, next week or a date you pick.
• Routines are each person's morning, after-school and evening steps, ticked off day by day. Milo's bedtime might be bath, teeth, vitamins, two books.
• Checklists are lists you reuse: the school bag, the sports kit, the weekend trip. Tap Use for an event… to add a checklist's items to something on the calendar, like Milo's gymnastics.

The kitchen

Meal plan

Each day has a dinner. Pick fills an empty one, Swap replaces one, and you can drag a recipe onto a day. Nook suggests dinners that fit the time there is to cook that evening.

Recipes

In Kitchen › Recipes, tap Write a recipe to type one, or Paste or scan to paste text or a link, or photograph a cookbook page. Ask Nook can save recipes too.

Groceries

The list merges what your planned recipes need with what you add by hand, grouped by aisle. Tap Have it on anything you already have. When you're back from the shop, tap Clear checked.

In the kitchen and receipts

Groceries › In the kitchen is what's in the house. It fills in as you clear the list, or tap Add from a receipt and photograph the receipt: Nook turns "ORG BNLS CHKN THGH" into chicken thighs, you tick what goes in, and matching items come off the list. Fresh things drop off after a while (change this under How long things last); staples stay. Tap Cook with these to plan dinners around what you have.

Ask Nook

Tap Ask Nook (the bar at the bottom on iPhone, the button on iPad) and type, or tap the microphone and talk.

Questions get a straight answer: Who's picking up Milo tomorrow? Are we free Saturday afternoon? What's for dinner this week?

Requests come back as a card listing exactly what will change, with Apply and Not now:

• Move gymnastics next Tuesday to Thursday
• Mary will pick Milo up from school tomorrow
• Add milk, eggs and bananas to the list
• Add vitamins to Milo's bedtime routine
• Plan June's birthday party on Dec 5 at 2, with a task for me to order the cake a week before

• Follow up naturally: actually make it 4 or Jordan's taking him instead.
• Say from now on to change a whole series; name a day to change just one.
• The + button attaches a photo of a flyer or pastes a whole schedule. Nook lays out every event for review first.
• Every applied card has Undo. Removing something asks once more.
• The hand icon shows exactly what's sent to the assistant.

The Planner and Dinners

On Today, tap Plan some free time. The first time, give Nook a home area (a city is enough). It finds real places and events near you that fit your free time, the forecast and the children's ages, each with why it fits, a map and what to book. Tap Add to Saturday to put one on the calendar for everyone, or Not this one to say why not. Type something indoors, June has a cold at the bottom to plan again.

The ⋯ menu plans today, tomorrow or other days, and has What we like: interests to look out for, how far to search (5 to 75 miles), and more. After an outing, Today asks How was it? and the next plan learns from it.

Dinners, the switch at the top, plans each open night around what's on: quick when there's practice, slower on a free Saturday. Add puts a dinner on the plan and what's missing on the grocery list; Add all does the whole week. Dinners is part of Nook Plus; picking another saved recipe for one night, and the meal plan itself, are free.

You can ask for these in Ask Nook too: find us something Saturday afternoon, then add the second one.

What Nook remembers

Mention a lasting fact and Nook offers to keep it. Milo's allergic to peanuts, add a task for Jordan to tell the school gives you the task and "Remember: Milo is allergic to peanuts" on the same card. Later, What can't Milo eat? is answered from memory.

• See and edit everything in Household › Memory. Swipe to forget.
• Milo has a cast until Nov 3 stops being used after that date.
• Keep this just for me: … keeps a memory on your devices only.

Send to Nook

From any app

In Photos, Mail, Safari, Files or any app with a Share button, tap Share and pick Send to Nook. The photo, PDF, link or text waits in Nook's Inbox on Today. Open it and Nook offers to make it into events, tasks, a recipe or kitchen stock, for you to approve. You can also drag or paste things into Nook.

By email

Your household can have its own address to forward school emails, flyers and booking confirmations to. Turn it on in Household › Assistant & privacy › Forward emails to Nook.

• Tap Choose a name for your address and type something like "Parker family". Nook adds a few random letters, so it becomes something like parker-family-k7q2@in.createnook.app, and only people you give it to can send to it. Make one up for me picks a name for you.
• Forwarded mail shows up on Today to sort. Mail from someone new is held until a person in the household taps Allow.
• Change the name… or Rotate address… makes a new address; the old one stops working straight away.
• Mail waits for your devices for at most 7 days. Forwarding by email is part of Nook Plus.

Sharing with your family

Everyone uses Nook on their own iPhone or iPad, with their own Apple ID, and the plans stay in step through iCloud.

If you're setting up

1. Go to Household › Family sharing, tap Turn on iCloud sync, and choose which person you are.
2. Tap Invite family and send the link by Messages, or add their Apple ID email. Leave it on Can make changes.

If you were invited

1. Install Nook and tap I was invited to a household, then sign in with Apple.
2. Tap the link in Messages or Mail. If it opens a web page instead, copy it and paste it on Nook's Join your household screen.
3. Tap Join, wait for the household to download, and pick which person you are.

Already using Nook on your own? Household › Family sharing › Join someone's household does the same, and saves what you had as a backup first.

A household holds up to 4 people; with Nook Plus, up to 8. Adding people is free either way.

Changes show on everyone's devices within seconds, including ones made offline. Each person can have a role (adult, caregiver or child). On a shared kitchen iPad, protect a personal view with a code, or use the kitchen counter view, which shows only shared things.

Siri, widgets, Control Center and Spotlight

Siri and Shortcuts

• Hey Siri, ask Nook who's picking up Milo tomorrow
• Hey Siri, ask Nook, then move gymnastics to Thursday. Siri reads the change back and asks before making it.
• Hey Siri, what's on today in Nook
• Hey Siri, add to my Nook list, then oat milk and dish soap

The same actions are in the Shortcuts app under Nook.

Widgets

Touch and hold the Home Screen or Lock Screen, add a widget and choose Nook. They show what's next and who's handling it, tonight's dinner, and anything Nook noticed. Larger sizes show more of the day. Tap one to open Today.

Control Center, the Lock Screen and the Action button

Add Ask Nook or Add to Nook (a quick event, task, dinner or note) as a control in Control Center, on the Lock Screen, or on the Action button, from the place's own edit screen.

Spotlight

Swipe down on the Home Screen and search. The next four weeks of events, your recipes and open tasks show up, and tapping one opens it in Nook. Other people's private things never appear.

Notifications

• When something is pressing, like a pickup tomorrow with nobody on it, the notification carries the fix. Touch and hold it, then tap Assign to Jordan.
• A morning brief each morning leads with anything to sort. Send a preview shows tomorrow's.
• Event reminders, a Thursday note about the weekend, and a Sunday look at the week ahead when there's something to sort.

Set them in Household › Notifications, including Quiet hours and whose notifications each device gets. A shared kitchen iPad can get nobody's.

Privacy and on-device AI

• Household: everyone sees the details. Busy only: others see a block of time. Private: only you, on any screen, widget or search. Set the default in Household › Visibility & protection.
• Your plans live on your devices and in your family's iCloud, in encrypted fields. Nook has no server for them.
• On iPhones and iPads with Apple Intelligence, quick reads (a short note, flyer or email, a recipe, a receipt, the morning brief) happen on the device and never leave it. Everyday questions like who's picking up are answered from your plan on the device too.
• Longer jobs, like a whole week's schedule, Ask Nook conversations and weekend ideas, go to Claude, Anthropic's assistant. Household › Assistant & privacy › What Nook sends lists exactly what goes.
• The first time Nook would use the assistant on its own, such as planning a weekend, it asks first.

The full details are in the privacy policy.

Nook Plus and the free allowance

The whole planner is free. Each household also gets 15 assistant requests a month from Claude. Answers from the device and reads done with Apple Intelligence don't count. Household › Assistant & privacy shows how many are used and when they start again.

Nook Plus is one subscription for the whole household, monthly or yearly, with 14 days free the first time. It makes the assistant unlimited, plans the week's dinners, adds the weekly review on Sundays, lets the household grow to 8 people, and adds your household's email address for Send to Nook. Everyone in the household has it on their own devices, children included, who never see an offer to buy.

• Subscribe in Household › People & sharing › Nook Plus.
• Restore purchases on the same screen if Plus doesn't show on a new device.
• Manage subscription opens Apple's settings to change plan or cancel. Apple reminds you before a trial ends.
• If Plus ends, nothing is deleted or locked. The assistant goes back to 15 requests a month, Dinners and the weekly review wait for Plus, the email address pauses, and everyone already in the household stays.

Prices and what's included are on the pricing page.

Tell us what you think

Go to Household › About › Tell us what you think, or on iPhone just shake it. Pick Problem, Idea or Love it and write a sentence. Nook shows you exactly what will be sent before it goes, and What you've told us shows where each one has got to. Turn shaking off in Household › About.

If something's off

A change isn't right

Tap Undo on the card or the note at the bottom, or the undo arrow in the toolbar.

"Sign in to use Nook's assistant"

Tap Sign in, or go to Household › Account › Continue with Apple.

"Nook couldn't plan"

The assistant was busy and Nook already tried twice. Tap Try again in a minute.

Someone's planner is empty after joining

Pull down on Today, or tap Household › Family sharing › Sync now. Joining can take a minute on a slow connection.

Sync says "Sign in to iCloud"

Sign in to iCloud in the Settings app.

Signing out or starting over

Sign out in Household › Account keeps your plans. Erase this device and start over removes Nook's data from the device; export a copy from Sync & data first if you want one.

Still stuck? See support or email support@createnook.app.