Shelf

Shelf is a place to keep things you find and want to remember. You save something, and Shelf reads it, writes a short summary, and files it into a category on its own. You do not have to sort anything yourself.

Saving something

Tap the blue + button at the bottom right. Four choices appear:

• Photo or PDF — a screenshot, a photo of a menu, a receipt, a document. You can pick more than one at a time.
• Link — paste a web address. To save several at once, put each one on its own line.
• Text — paste a message, a recipe, or type a note. Use Save & add another to keep adding without closing.
• Place — an address, the name of a shop or restaurant, or a Google Maps link. It goes onto your map.

Quicker ways: copy anything, then open Shelf and press paste (⌘V or long-press → Paste). You can also drag a file onto the page.

Instagram and Facebook: these usually hide their posts from apps like Shelf. If a link comes back empty, take a screenshot of the post and save that instead — Shelf reads screenshots very well.

Getting around

• The ☰ menu button at the top left opens a list of every category, with a count beside each one.
• Along the bottom are five buttons: Library (everything you saved), Travel (your map), Expenses (splitting trip costs), Quick Save (the same as the +), and Settings.

Finding things again

• The coloured buttons near the top are categories. Tap one to see only those items. Tap All to see everything again. If there are more than fit, tap ⋯ to see the full list.
• Tap the magnifying glass at the top to search. It looks inside titles, summaries, your own notes, and place names.
• The ⇅ button sorts: newest first, oldest first, A–Z, or by category.
• Beside it, two small icons switch between a list and a grid of pictures. The one lit up is the one you are using.
• Scrolled too far? A ↑ button appears to jump back to the top. Tapping Library at the bottom does the same thing.

Places and the map

• An item that has saved places shows a small pin badge with a number on its card. Tap it to jump to the map with those places shown.
• On the map, the round coloured buttons filter the pins by category. Tap the same one again to show everything.
• Under each place in the Travel list is a link back to the item it came from, so you can always find the original post.

Opening and changing an item

Tap any item to open it. Inside you can:

• Edit title or Change category if Shelf guessed wrong. Your choice sticks and will not be changed again.
• Add note — your own words. Shelf never overwrites these.
• Add photo or PDF — attach more files to the same item.
• Read it — if there is a link, this pulls in the details and may refile the item.
• Places — add an address so it appears on the map, or tap Route here to plan a trip to it.

Deleting

• To delete one item: open it, scroll down, tap Remove from shelf.
• To delete several: tap Select, tick the ones you want, then tap Delete.

Shelf always asks before deleting anything. Deleting cannot be undone, and it removes the item from all your devices.

The Travel tab

Any place Shelf finds appears here on a map. To plan a trip: tick the places you want, choose where to start (From) and end (To), then tap Plan route. Open in Google Maps hands the whole route to Google Maps for directions.

If a place is not on the map, tap Locate to try again, or Pin to set its position yourself. Small food stalls often are not in the map database, so pinning them by hand is normal.

Using Shelf on more than one device

Open ⚙ Settings and tap New code. Write that code down. On your other phone or computer, open Settings there, tap Enter code, and type the same code. Both now share the same shelf.

Important: keep the code somewhere safe. Nobody can recover it for you, and anyone who has it can see your shelf.

Keeping a backup

In ⚙ Settings, tap Export everything to save a copy to your device. Import from JSON puts it back. Doing this now and then is worth the ten seconds.

When an item will not read

Your own AI key has a free daily allowance. If you use it up, items are still saved but left unread — nothing is lost. A note appears above the list with a Retry all button; tap it later and Shelf reads them one at a time.

Saving several things at once is fine. Shelf reads them one after another on purpose, because asking too quickly is what uses the allowance up.

No key yet? Items will say so and wait. Add one in ⚙ Settings, then tap Retry all.

Your AI key — set this up first

Shelf reads and files your saves using Google’s Gemini AI, and everyone brings their own free key. That way nobody’s busy day slows anyone else down. The first time you open Shelf it asks you to do this:

• Go to aistudio.google.com/apikey and sign in with any Google account.
• Tap Create API key. It is free and does not ask for a card.
• Copy it, paste it into Shelf, and tap Save and start. Shelf checks the key works before keeping it.

You can also do this later in ⚙ Settings → Your own AI key, and Test key there will tell you whether it is working.

The key stays on that one device. It is never synced, never included in a backup, and never sent to whoever set Shelf up. If you use Shelf on a phone and a computer, add the key on each one.

Without a key, saving still works — your items are kept, they just wait unread until you add one. Then tap Retry all and Shelf reads everything that was waiting.

Splitting trip costs

The Expenses tab keeps track of what a trip cost and works out who owes what. Start by adding everyone’s name under Who is sharing. If you take more than one trip, keep them apart using the trip box at the top — see Keeping trips apart below.

• Tap + Add and type it in — a description and an amount is all it needs. Most costs do not come with a receipt worth photographing.
• Or tap Receipt to photograph the bill. Shelf reads the total and the currency off it so you do not have to type them.
• Tap the expense to check what it found. You can fix the amount, and pick the right currency on the receipt if it guessed wrong — faded bills and unusual symbols often trip it up.
• Choose Paid by, then tick everyone who shared that particular item.

Each expense is divided only between the people ticked on it. So if breakfast was shared by three of you but dinner only by two, each is split its own way.

Different currencies are fine. Pick the currency you want totals in under Show totals in, and everything is converted for you. Rates refresh once a day; Update rates fetches them again.

Who owes what at the bottom shows each person’s share, then the simplest set of payments to settle up — usually just one or two transfers rather than everyone paying everyone.

Keeping trips apart

The box at the top of the Expenses tab chooses which trip you are looking at. Everything below it — the list, the total and the settlement — belongs to that trip alone.

• New trip starts a fresh one and switches to it. Anything you add from then on goes into it.
• Rename changes its name. Delete removes the trip but keeps the receipts — they move to Unsorted.
• Unsorted is where anything without a trip lives, including receipts saved before you started using trips.

To move an expense, open it and change Which trip. The number beside each trip name is how many receipts are in it.

Something paid more than once

For a hotel charged per night, or breakfast bought every morning, you do not need an entry for each one. Open the expense and set How many times.

Enter the cost of one of them in the amount, then the count. A 180 room for 3 nights is entered as 180 with a count of 3, and Shelf treats it as 540 everywhere — the list, the total and the split.

The dropdown beside the count (per night, per day, per week) is only a label to remind you what it was. It does not change the sum.

Dividing a cost unevenly

By default a cost is split evenly between everyone ticked. When that is not fair — one person had the steak, or stayed an extra night — open the expense and change How to divide it.

• Equally — the default. Nothing to type.
• Exact amounts — type what each person owes. Useful when the bill already lists it.
• By shares — give people a weight. Two shares to one means that person pays twice as much. Good for a room one couple shares.
• By percent — type a percentage each.

With exact amounts or percentages, Shelf tells you if the numbers do not add up — for example 20 still to assign. It will not quietly spread the difference around, because that hides a typing mistake.

Settling up

When someone actually hands over money, tap Record payment in the Who owes what panel. It fills in the largest debt for you, so usually you just confirm it.

That clears the balance without adding a cost — the trip total stays the same. Recorded payments are listed in the same panel, and Undo removes one if you tap it by mistake.

A worked example

Say three of you are away together:

• Breakfast, 30, paid by Alan, shared by Alan, Beire and Casoline.
• Lunch, 40, paid by Beire, shared by Alan and Beire.
• Dinner, 50, paid by Casoline, shared by Beire and Casoline.

Alan used 10 + 20 = 30. Beire used 10 + 20 + 25 = 55. Casoline used 10 + 25 = 35. Alan already paid his 30, so he is square. Beire paid 40 but used 55, and Casoline paid 50 but used 35 — so Shelf shows one payment: Beire pays Casoline 15.

Changing or removing an expense

• Tap any expense to edit it. Everything can be changed afterwards — the description, the amount, the currency, the date, who paid, who shared, and how it is divided.
• Delete at the bottom of that panel removes it. Shelf asks first, and the totals recalculate straight away.
• Removing a person removes them from every expense they were on. Shelf warns you how many that affects before doing it, because the cost then falls to whoever is left.

Expenses on your other devices

Everything on this tab travels with your sync code: the receipts, the names, and the currency you chose. Add people on your phone and they are there on your computer after the next sync.

If two of you add different names at the same time, nobody is lost — both names end up on both devices. Sync each device once to let them catch up.

No AI key? You can still use this tab. Tap + Add receipt, then type the description and amount in yourself. The key only saves you the typing.

Replacing your AI key

If your key stops working, or you want to use a different Google account, you can swap it at any time:

• Open ⚙ Settings and find Your own AI key.
• Paste the new key over the old one — saving replaces it.
• Tap Test key to check it works.
• Remove key clears it from this device. Saving still works afterwards; items just wait unread.

Deleting a key in Google AI Studio does not remove it from Shelf. If you delete it there, paste a new one here too, or reading will stop.

The AI model

Google adds and retires models over time. Shelf asks your key which ones it can use and picks the newest lightweight one by itself, so a retirement usually fixes itself without you noticing.

⚙ Settings → AI model shows which one is in use. Check again forces a fresh look, which is worth trying if reading suddenly stops. You can type a model name to pin it, but leaving it blank is better for most people — a pinned model will eventually be retired and stop working.

Changing how the map looks

⚙ Settings → Map style offers three looks. If the map ever shows an error instead of streets, switch to a different one — they come from different providers, so one working when another does not is normal.

If something looks wrong

• "Behind a login" — the page will not show itself to Shelf. Screenshot it and save the picture instead. Instagram and Facebook usually need this.
• "The free daily quota is used up" — your key’s allowance for today is gone. Nothing is lost: wait, then tap Retry all.
• "Add your own AI key in Settings" — Shelf has no key on this device yet. See Your AI key above.
• "That key was rejected" — the key was mistyped or has been deleted in Google AI Studio. Create a new one and paste it in.
• Reading stopped working after a while — Google sometimes retires an AI model. Shelf normally switches by itself; if it does not, open ⚙ Settings → AI model and tap Check again.
• "The AI service was busy" — just try again in a moment.
• The map shows an error — change Map style in Settings.
• Nothing seems to update — close Shelf completely and open it again. Refreshing alone is sometimes not enough.
• Your other device is missing things — check both devices have the same sync code in Settings, then tap Sync now.