Private lists — Groups & roles

Closed groups and role system

Every private list belongs to a closed group. Only authenticated members of that group can access the wishlists it contains. The group is the central unit of organisation: a family, a circle of friends, a group of colleagues — you define your own space.

Three principles apply to every member of the group, regardless of their role: anyone can create their own wishlist within the group, anyone can invite other people to join it, and every list is visible to all members — including your own. Within the group, a wishlist is therefore never private from the others: that is precisely what lets them reserve gifts on it. Only the reservations themselves stay hidden from the person being spoiled, to keep the surprise intact.

On top of that, Olaf Wishlist offers five distinct roles to cover every use case. The group creator is the person who started it: they can promote members to editor or demote them, and can transfer ownership to someone else. The Editor shares the creator's administrative rights (member management, promotion/demotion), can create and edit gift ideas on any member's list, and cancel reservations.

The regular Member can view all wishlists in the group, add gift ideas to someone else's list, and make reservations — on top, of course, of the three rights shared by everyone (creating their own list, inviting, and seeing all lists). The Beneficiary is the person receiving the gifts — they are at the heart of the list. They can modify their own list but never see reservations before the expiry date. Finally, the guardian manages a list for a person without an account (a child, for example) — unlike a regular beneficiary, they can see reservations on the list they manage and make reservations themselves.

Event types and configuration

When creating a private wishlist, you choose from several event types: Christmas, Birthday or Other. This choice influences the display and helps your loved ones immediately understand the context.

You then set an event date and an expiry date. The event date blocks all modifications or reservations once reached — lists are frozen on the day itself. The expiry date, always after the event, is when the gift recipient can finally discover who gave what and read the personal messages left by those who reserved gifts.

Adding and managing items

Each item on a wishlist can include a title, an indicative price, a URL to the product, an image, a personal comment, a priority (0 to 5 stars) and a desired quantity. This information helps your loved ones find exactly what you need, without having to improvise.

Priority is a powerful tool: by marking your most important items with a high priority, you subtly guide your loved ones towards the gifts that would make you happiest. Quantity lets you specify how many copies of the same item you'd like — useful for consumables (candles, coffee capsules) or collections (books in a series, for example).

The image can be extracted automatically from a product URL using the Load button, or added manually.

And if you come across the product in a shop, you can add it to your list by scanning its barcode — available only from the mobile app (see the Mobile app guide).

The surprise preserved until the end

At Olaf, everything is designed to protect the surprise. The gift recipient — the person receiving the gifts — can never see who reserved an item, nor read the personal notes left by those who reserved. This information stays hidden until the list's expiry date. It's only after expiry that everything is revealed: names, messages, contributions — a moment of discovery as moving as the event itself.

Available on web, mobile and extension

Private lists can be fully managed from the website on desktop or smartphone, from the mobile app on iOS and Android, and from the browser extension on Chrome, Firefox and Edge. Regardless of the platform used, all changes are synchronised in real time for all group members.