Organization

The docs do okay in explaining how things are organized and split, but here is a short, condensed version for your reference.

An Example

Here is what I've got now and will use this as an example...

• Group = Spartan
• Household = Tribe (inside Spartan)
• Cookbooks = Death By Spartan, MammaJ, AirFryer

In this setup, anything under cookbooks is visible to everyone in the Spartan group because cookbooks are created "inside of a group" and are basically saved filters of the group's recipes.

Meal plans and shopping lists are per-household, so Tribe's plans/lists are mine alone.

Adding a Friend?

There are basically three options:

1. Add your friend to the same group, but give them their own household
   1. He and you share all recipes, categories, tags, tools, and cookbooks
   2. His meal plans & shopping lists stay separate from yours
   3. This is the usual “friends/family sharing recipes but not grocery chaos” pattern
      
      
2. Create a new group for your friend
   1. Total isolation: different users, recipes, tags, cookbooks—the lot
   2. Best if he wants his stuff completely separate from yours
   3. You can still share a recipe via public/private links if you toggle the right settings (see “Public Recipe Access”)
      
      
3. Drop him straight into your Tribe household
   1. You’ll share everything, including meal plans and shopping lists
   2. Great for a spouse/roommate, probably over-shared for a friend

About Privacy and Who Can See What

By default, groups/households are private to logged-in users only. Public viewing requires:

1. Group not private
2. Household not private and "allow users outside your group" enabled
3. Recipe set to public
   1. Handy if you ever want to share a link beyond your user base

Cookbooks - How Mine Fit In

Cookbooks (like the ones I have listed above in my example) are group-scoped saved filters. If your friend is in the same group, he'll see and can use them. If he is in a different group, he won't.