As we’ve started moving away from paper in favor of jotting down notes on our phones, grocery lists have begun to migrate from small handheld notebooks and scraps of paper to become permanent residents of our phones’ home screens. Staying properly organized, however, can be a little trickier than simply asking Siri or Alexa to make a list of the things that are on the top of your head. That’s where the best grocery list apps come into play.
There are plenty of apps that can help you stay on top of your grocery list-making while also providing plenty of other great features like budgeting assistance, list organization, and coupon gathering. Here are the best grocery list apps to use for iPhone and Android for making lists to help you with your shopping. If you’re looking for more productivity apps, check out our list of the best iPad Pro productivity apps, too.
Apple Notes
The absolute easiest way to start, maintain, and curate any list is to use what your phone supplies. The iPhone’s Notes app lets you ask Siri to create and add to topic-specific lists. “Hey Siri, add milk to my grocery list” couldn’t be an easier way to note something you’ve run out of before you forget. It syncs to Apple’s iCloud, so it’ll stay updated across different iOS devices, and you can even snap pictures of any handwritten grocery lists you have to keep them easily available.
Google Keep
Google’s Keep app lets you create lists by store or topic and add to it with the help of Google Assistant. It syncs up to Google’s cloud services, and it has a desktop app as well, making it incredibly useful for jotting down quick lists before you head out the door in the morning or at night. You can even share notes with certain people, so you can run a collaborative grocery store list for your household. All of this comes at no cost at all.
Todoist
This productivity app can be adapted for groceries, to-do lists, and collaborative tasks, so it’s a true workhorse. Todoist lets you customize themes and comes with animated movements that give you a bit of a boost when you check something off. Due dates mean you’ll get a reminder on the day if you need to pick up bananas, and you can set tasks to repeat as well — perfect for regular shopping trips.
Mealime
Mealime lets you combine your recipe app with a shopping list. You can get personalized recipe suggestions and directly add the required ingredients to your shopping list. How convenient is that? Plus, the app is free to use for both Android and iOS, so anyone can use it with little to no restrictions.
Flipp
Flipp offers an effective approach to creating grocery lists. It doubles up as a coupon finder along with being a grocery list app. The app lets users browse, filter, and find the best weekly grocery deals by combining local deals with coupons from their favorite brands. This way, you can do your regular grocery shopping for a much cheaper price.
Our Groceries
This app has been around for a while. With both a paid premium version and a free app, Our Groceries lets you link your Google Assistant so you can add items by voice with any Google smart speaker or Google Assistant app. You can use the barcode scanner to easily add specific items to your grocery run, and when you cross items off, it drops them to a separate list so you can still see them until you choose to delete them permanently.
AnyList
Take the functionality of a basic grocery list app, add the ability to include a photo of what’s on the list, and you’ve got AnyList. While you’ll need an upgraded account to access this feature, photos mean you can share your list with someone else (perfect for pandemic shopping) and still get exactly the brands and sizes you want.
AnyList also organizes your groceries for you by where items are located in the store, and it has a vast database of items already in the app so you can add food quickly with a single tap. Need to add more information to your list? AnyList can tack notes onto individual items, which is another standout feature. There’s also built-in recipe storage that allows you to post items to the grocery list from within the recipe itself. Naturally, your grocery lists are shareable, too.
Out of Milk
The best feature of this app is the ability to scan barcodes. Do that, and it will automatically add them to a list, with no typing required. In testing, we opened up the pantry and scanned anything we were running low on. It took seconds to make the entire shopping list. You can also add prices to each item so you can see what your bill will be — before you get to the checkout. Out of Milk also allows you to create a dedicated shopping list of things you need immediately and a pantry list for things to pick up down the road or when they’re on sale. An integrated, basic to-do list rounds out this handy app.
ShopShop
This app is a personal favorite simply for its ease of use and freebie status. ShopShop allows you to easily add items to your list and cross them off when you’re done. You can then keep those items in view or remove them for a cleaner, shorter list as you wind through the store. ShopShop will also store your foods in its memory, so you can quickly add repeatedly-purchased items to your grocery list with fewer taps. Create multiple lists and color-code each one, too. ShopShop lists can be sent via text or email, so you can pass on what needs to be picked up, too.
Bring!
Are you more of a visual person? The Bring! app uses small boxed pictograms to populate a list with line-drawn icons to create more of a match-game grid. You can also add your own items, and Bring! will create a custom icon. All lists are shareable, and the app’s Inspiration tab lets you surf recipes if you’re stuck on what to cook for dinner this week. You can also manage your lists from your Apple Watch and ask Siri to add items to your list. This one is a favorite of ours, thanks to its unique layout and visualization.
Cozi Family Organizer
If you’re looking to coordinate grocery lists with your entire family, then Cozi Family Organizer is the app to use. The “List” tab allows users to create a shared shopping list that everyone with access to it can add to — meaning that kids can share snack ideas and parents can keep everyone updated on meal plans. Once an ingredient gets added, the list automatically organizes it by food group to make shopping that much easier. In addition to its grocery list features, there are plenty of other family organizational tools that Cozi offers, making it a great choice for anyone looking to keep track of their family’s busy schedule.
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