Less Mayhem

Help & support

Everything you might wonder about Less Mayhem, answered plainly. Can’t find it below? Email support@lessmayhem.com — a human reads every message.

Quick answers

Is it free?+
Yes — free to use at launch. A premium tier, Less Mayhem Plus, comes later as one subscription for the whole family, but the everyday essentials stay free.
Do I need to buy a special device?+
No. Less Mayhem runs on everyone’s phones and any web browser, and a spare tablet you already own becomes the kitchen wall display — Hub Mode.
Is my family’s data private?+
Yes. Your family’s information — especially your kids’ photos and whereabouts — is never sold and never used for ads. Private by default, and yours to take: export everything from Settings, any time.
Do my kids need their own accounts?+
No. Children don’t sign in with their own credentials — a parent adds them and they get their own view of their chores from the Kids page. Adults run everything.
How does my partner join?+
From the Family page, share your household’s invite link. They open it, sign in, and land in the same household — same calendar, same lists, same everything.

Getting started

Sign in with Apple, Google, or an email and password — or ask for a magic link and skip the password entirely. Onboarding walks you through naming your family, setting a weekly allowance, and adding children and routines. Nothing is set in stone: you can re-run it any time from Settings → Redo onboarding.

I forgot my password.+
On the sign-in page, choose Forgot password and we’ll email you a reset link. Or sidestep it: ask for a magic link instead and sign in straight from your inbox.
How do I invite a second parent?+
Open the Family page and share your invite link. When they open it and sign in, they join your household as a parent — full access, same family.
Can I see the app tour again?+
Yes — Settings → App tour replays the quick highlights of what Less Mayhem can do.
I added the wrong details during setup.+
Children, routines and the family name can all be edited from the Family page — or step back through the whole setup via Settings → Redo onboarding.

Home & Calendar

Home is the family’s today-at-a-glance: the day’s events, tonight’s meal, and anything that needs doing. The Calendar holds everyone’s events, colour-coded by family member, with repeats, all-day events and locations. Events created from a forwarded school email are marked with their source, so you always know where a date came from.

Can I sync with Google Calendar?+
Yes — Settings → Calendar sync → Connect Google. Events flow both ways, so the family calendar and your Google calendar stay in step.
How do repeating events work?+
When you add or edit an event, choose a repeat — weekly swimming, the fortnightly bin run — and it takes care of every future occurrence. Edit the series once rather than fifty Tuesdays.
Whose colour is whose?+
Each family member gets a colour when they’re added, and their events wear it everywhere — the calendar, Home, and the wall display.

Inbox — school email

Your family gets its own private forwarding address (find it on the Inbox page or under Settings → School email). Forward a school email there and Less Mayhem reads it for you, pulling out events, to-dos and notices for you to approve — nothing lands on the calendar without your say-so. Save the address as a contact (“School Inbox”) and forwarding becomes a two-tap habit.

I forwarded an email but nothing appeared.+
Give it a minute — parsing isn’t instant. Then check you forwarded to your family’s exact address (it starts with fam-), shown in Settings → School email. If you use Gmail auto-forwarding, Gmail first sends a confirmation — Less Mayhem catches it and shows the confirmation step in Settings.
How does it know which child an email is about?+
Add a student profile for each child — school, year group, class, teacher — under Settings → School email. The more it knows, the better it sorts; and you can always reassign an item before approving it.
Can I set up automatic forwarding?+
Yes. Add a forwarding rule in your email app (in Gmail: Settings → Forwarding) pointing at your family’s address — school newsletters then sort themselves without you lifting a finger.
What happens to emails I don’t approve?+
They stay in the Inbox as notices you can read or dismiss. Nothing is added to the calendar or lists until a parent approves it.

Lists

Shopping lists and to-do lists that update live — tick “milk” in the shop and it’s ticked on every phone at home the same second. Add quantities where they help, and keep as many lists as your household needs.

Can two people shop from the same list at once?+
That’s the point — the list updates in real time for everyone, so you’ll never come home with two cartons of milk again.
What’s the difference between a shopping list and a to-do list?+
Shopping lists are built for groceries (quantities, quick re-adds); to-do lists are for everything else. Both sync live across the family.

Meals

Plan the week’s dinners on the Meals page, keep the family’s favourites in the recipe book, and send a recipe’s ingredients straight to the shopping list in one tap. Tonight’s meal shows up on Home and the wall display, which quietly retires the question “what’s for dinner?”

How do ingredients get onto the shopping list?+
Open a recipe and choose to send its ingredients to the shopping list. Cross off what’s already in the cupboard, keep the rest.
Can I plan more than dinners?+
The planner is built around the week’s main meals, but a recipe can be anything you cook — batch lunches, Saturday pancakes, the lot.

Hearth — the assistant

Hearth does the typing for you. Open the Hearth tab and just tell it — “swimming Tuesdays at five for Mia”, “add bin bags and cheese to the shopping list” — and it turns plain words into real calendar events and list items.

What can Hearth actually do?+
It can add events to the family calendar and items to your lists, and answer questions about what’s coming up. Tell it dates, times, repeats and which child it’s for, all in one breath.
Is what I tell it private?+
Your requests are sent to our AI gateway with prompt logging disabled, and your family’s data is never used to train AI models. The full detail is in our Privacy Policy.
Can I change which AI model it uses?+
Yes — pick a model under Settings → Assistant. The default suits most families.

Chores & the chart

Each child gets gentle daily routines — the chart. The Chores page shows today’s routines for ticking off, and each child has their own view from the Kids page. Deliberately calm by design: no points, no streaks, no leaderboards — nothing for a child to lose. The Chart page prints a paper copy for the fridge and hosts the Sunday review, where you tweak the week ahead.

What does it mean when a routine “graduates”?+
When a routine has become automatic — done consistently, no reminders needed — it graduates off the chart. That’s the win: the habit stuck. Graduated routines are celebrated on the Family page.
We’re going away — can we pause the chart?+
Yes. Start a chart holiday and tracking pauses guilt-free until you’re back. Holidays shouldn’t come with homework.
How do I add or change a routine?+
From the Family page, open a child and add or edit their routines — title, icon, and which days it applies. Changes show up on the chart straight away.
Why are there no points or streaks?+
On purpose. The research on habit-building in children favours steady routines and real pocket money over gamification — streaks give a child something to lose, and losing feels lousy. Calm beats competitive.

Money, allowance & bonus jobs

Each child has a real balance in pounds on the Money page. Weekly allowance is paid automatically every Sunday, Bonus Jobs are extra, paid one-off tasks, and savings goals give the balance somewhere to aim.

When does allowance get paid?+
Automatically every Sunday, late in the evening. Set the weekly amount during onboarding or change it any time from the Family page.
How do bonus jobs work?+
A parent posts a job with a reward — “wash the car, £2”. A child takes it and marks it done, it appears under “Needs your OK”, and the money lands in their balance once you approve.
What does “cash out” do?+
It records that you’ve handed over real money — the balance in the app goes down, the piggy bank fills up. The app tracks the money; you supply the coins.
Can I correct a mistake in a child’s balance?+
Yes — add an adjustment (up or down, with a note) from the Money page. The ledger keeps the history honest.
Can my child set a savings goal?+
Each child can have a goal — the bike, the game — and the Money page shows how close they are. Patience, visualised.

Photos & Messages

Photos is your family’s private gallery — the good bits, visible only to your household. Never a social network, never an ad. Messages is the fridge note, for everyone: quick notes to the household, with the important ones pinned to the top.

Who can see our photos?+
Only your family. Photos live in private storage and are served through short-lived signed links — there is no public gallery and no sharing outside the household.
How do I pin a note?+
Open the note on the Messages page and pin it. Pinned notes hold the top spot until you unpin them — just like the good fridge magnets.

Hub Mode — the wall display

Hub Mode turns a spare tablet into a glanceable kitchen display — a big warm dashboard of what’s coming up, tonight’s meal and today’s chores. To set one up: on the tablet, open Less Mayhem and choose Display mode; then on your phone, go to Settings → Wall displays and enter the pairing code the tablet shows.

Can the kids change things from the wall display?+
No — the display is read-only by design. It shows the family what’s happening; changes happen from a signed-in phone.
The display stopped showing our family.+
Re-pair it: remove the old device under Settings → Wall displays, then pair again with a fresh code from the tablet.
What tablet do I need?+
Any reasonably recent iPad or Android tablet with a browser — including the one gathering dust in a drawer. No special hardware, no £300 display.

Notifications, Activity & app lock

The Activity page is the family’s quiet feed — what’s happened, what needs you. Push notifications are off until you turn them on, per device, under Settings → Notifications — and they only nudge when something genuinely needs a parent: approvals, notes.

I’m not getting notifications.+
Check the toggle in Settings → Notifications on the device in question, then check your phone’s system settings allow Less Mayhem to notify. Each device opts in separately.
Can I lock the app behind Face ID?+
On the iPhone and Android apps, yes — turn on App lock in Settings and the app asks for Face ID or a fingerprint each time it opens on that device.

Account, privacy & your data

Your family’s data belongs to your family. No ads, nothing sold, private by default — and yours to take with you. Export everything from Settings → Account, any time. The fine print lives in the Privacy Policy and Terms.

How do I export our data?+
Settings → Account → export. You get a complete copy of your family’s data — calendar, lists, chores, money history, the lot.
How do I delete my account?+
From Settings → Account, or see how account deletion works. Deletion is scheduled with a 7-day grace period, so a change of heart — or a curious child with your phone — can be undone.
Can I leave a family without deleting my account?+
Yes, as long as another parent remains in the household — the option is in Settings under Account.
What is Less Mayhem Plus?+
A future premium tier — one subscription covering the whole family. At launch everything is free, and the everyday essentials will stay free.

Troubleshooting

The usual suspects, and what to do about them.

My magic link never arrived.+
Check spam and give it a couple of minutes — some inboxes dawdle. Still nothing? Sign in with your password instead, or request a fresh link (the newest one wins).
It says sign-ups are currently restricted.+
During early access, new sign-ups are limited. If your partner hit this while joining your family, email support@lessmayhem.com and we’ll open the door.
Google Calendar sync looks out of date.+
Sync runs periodically rather than instantly. If it’s properly stuck, disconnect and reconnect Google under Settings → Calendar sync.
Something else is wrong.+
Tell us — support@lessmayhem.com. A human reads every message. Include what you were doing and what you expected, and we’ll take it from there.

Still stuck?

Email support@lessmayhem.com and we’ll sort it out. For privacy and data questions, it’s privacy@lessmayhem.com.

A little less mayhem.